Mozart’s E-flat Viola Quintet, KV 614, dates from the final year of his life, and was his last serious chamber music work. It was written at more or less the same time as his opera The Magic Flute, which is also an E-flat-major-based work; but it is striking how this key resonates so differently in the two pieces.
For me, the opera’s sound is appropriately rich and dark, with associations of majesty and secrecy, whereas the Quintet evokes the thoughts of perhaps a bright divertimento played at an open air event.
Please be patient with the long and silly tuning session before Mozart’s music begins, and then enjoy this music to its fullest:
