Viola quintets: Mendelssohn Op. 18 and Mozart K515

Last night was another session of viola quintets at my house.  I know I've been playing a lot of viola quintets, but if I want to play with violists without switching to violin myself, that's pretty much what I have to do. :-)  It's unfortunate that there are many fewer quintets than quartets, since some of the great quartet composers didn't write quintets (Haydn, Bartok, Shostakovich), and some of the quintets of great composers are unaccountably neglected (I can't imagine why people don't play Beethoven's Op. 29!)  But there are enough wonderful works to keep me occupied for quite a while.

We started with a seldom-played work, the first Mendelssohn quintet, the Op. 18 in A major.   I don't really understand why this piece is neglected, but then, one of my gifts (?) as a chamber musician is that I like practically everything.  Perhaps this pieces is a little heavily weighted towards the first violin, but our wonderful first violinist had worked up the part so that it was a pleasure to hear.   Actually, it was a great group, top to bottom!

We then did three movements of the Mozart K515 Quintet in C major, before running out of energy.  K515 is definitely an example of Mozart not being in a hurry!  The first movement is very long; you feel like you've been playing forever when you reach the exposition repeat, and realize you're not even half done.  The minuet and trio is rather sedate, and the slow movement is also lengthy: it needs to be, to fit in all the thirty-second notes in the beautiful duet between the first violin and first viola.  I'd chosen to play second viola on this pieces, and I was happy to have done so: the other violist played so beautifully that it was a pleasure to let her be in the driver's seat.

I had a special reason for wanting to play this work: it was the birthday of one of the violinists, and I had done a setting of Happy Birthday in the style of Mozart, modeled after the opening bars of the first movement of this quintet.  That went over well, but perhaps the birthday cake was appreciated even more. :-)