String Quintet No. 4 in G minor, KV 516

About the work

Mozart's string quintets add a second viola to the quartet, and the G minor, K. 516, written in the spring of 1787 alongside the C major, K. 515, stands among the peaks of his chamber music. G minor was his key of unrest: sighing figures in the first movement, a shadowed Adagio, and a desolate slow introduction before the finale — which then turns, disarmingly, into a cheerful G major rondo. That sudden clearing of the sky has divided listeners for two centuries.

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