Mozart's String Quartets (Opus 10)

This collection consists of six works:

They have all been typeset and edited by Maurizio Tomasi <zio_tom78@hotmail.com>, http://www.geocities.com/zio_tom78/.

Maurizio has produced a PDF (or PostScript) file containing all six works, along with a reproduction of the title page of the original edition, Mozart's dedication to Haydn and some notes.

The notes are as follows:

Notes

In this appendix I report errors and incongruences I found in the source text used to prepare this book: the Breitkopf & Härtel edition, 1882 (from now on, B&H). I do not own another edition, so in the cases where the B&H edition had some oddities, I referred to the Philips recordings of these quartets made by Quartetto Italiano in 1966. By the way, I recommend these beautiful recordings to every music lover.

String Quartet KV. 387

Allegro Vivace Assai, bars 103-104. The tie in bar 104 starts from the D in bar 103 (thus being a slur).

Bars 103-105

This seems to be a typing mistake, since bar 105 has a tie. Moreover, a slur would not match the Violin II and Cello parts.

Andante Cantabile, bar 14. The Violin I part has a blank space instead of the eighth rest.

Andante Cantabile, bars 49-51. In every instrument the last note is a sixteenth; this is of course an error, since the duration of every bar would be 3/4 + 1/32. For example, the Violin I part is written in the following manner:

Bars 48-50

I chose to change sixteenth notes into thirty-second notes because it is the same solution adopted by Quartetto Italiano, but of course there is the possibility that the error is in the dotted rests.

Molto Allegro, bar 80. The B&H text reports the possibility that the cello part has a natural D instead of a D sharp. In the same way, it reports that in bar 85 the second note (C) might be a C sharp.

Molto Allegro, bar 205. The Cello has a blank space instead of the G.

String Quartet KV. 421

No significant errors were found in the B&H edition.

String Quartet KV. 428

No significant errors were found in the B&H edition.

String Quartet KV. 458

Allegro vivace assai, bar 27. The B&H text reports a G in the viola part, but it is probably a mistake (see bar 163).

Allegro vivace assai, bar 155. This bar is not present in the B&H score. It is without doubt a mistake, since none of the slurs that begin in bar 154 is properly closed.

Adagio, bar 16. The last note of the viola has not the natural sign before it. A C flat would be strange because of the dissonance with the C in the Violin I part.

String Quartet KV. 464

In general, the B&H edition is not very coherent in marking the tuplet numbers. When reorganizing them, I chose not to note every change to the source text here in order not to over-lengthen these notes.

The B&H score uses no tremolo marks at all. I used some of them to save print (especially in the cello part).

Andante, bar 104. The Violin II part has an ambiguous C sharp instead of E. This is strange since there is no cautionary accidental before the note (the previous and following bars both have natural C):

Bars 103-105

The E was suggested by the Philips recording. This is a good solution since it matches bar 95, Violin I part.

String Quartet KV. 465

Cautionary alterations were not reported coherently in this quartet (where alterations have such a great importance!). I added some of these to each movement (not reported in these notes).

Tremolo marks are present in the B&H score only with sixteenth notes (e.g. bars 238-255, fourth movement). I added some tremoli of eighth notes to the first two movements in order to conserve some space on the page (e.g. opening bars, cello part).

Adagio - Allegro, bar 187. The Violin I part of the B&H score is the following:

Bars 187-188

The second G sharp is probably a printing mistake. I converted it into a F, in order to match bar 67.