String Quartet No. 2 in D major, K. 155 (K. 134a)
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart’s String Quartet in D major, K. 155 (K. 134a) is an early, Italianate chamber work from 1772, written when he was just sixteen. Though modest in scale—three concise movements for four strings—it already shows a quick-eared composer experimenting with tonal surprises and a newly alert sense of conversational texture within the quartet medium.
Background and Context
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) encountered the string quartet not first as the later “serious” Viennese genre associated with Joseph Haydn, but as a flexible Italian chamber idiom—close in spirit to the sinfonia (opera overture) and to salon divertimento. String Quartet in D major, K. 155 belongs to the group traditionally called the “Milanese” quartets (K. 155–160), composed during Mozart’s Italian travels in 1772–73, well before his intensive study of Haydn’s mature quartet style in Vienna in 1773. At this stage, the three-movement plan (fast–slow–fast) is the norm, and the first violin often leads with a distinctly operatic, melodic profile.[1][2]
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
What makes K. 155 worth hearing today is precisely this “in-between” identity. It is neither a juvenile exercise for strings nor a proto-Haydn essay in four-movement architectural balance. Instead, it captures Mozart testing what a quartet can do when its rhetoric is still Italian—quick to sing, quick to turn, and quick to surprise—yet already curious about texture, imitation, and harmonic sidesteps that can sharpen the drama without enlarging the form.[3]
Composition and Dedication
The work is transmitted as an authentic, completed quartet for two violins, viola, and cello.[1] Dating and even the familiar travel-place labels (“Bozen/Bolzano” and Verona) are less straightforward than they seem: older reference traditions often tie K. 155 to the journey, while later source- and paper-studies emphasize that the autographs of the six quartets share the same paper type and likely relate to Mozart’s time in Milan at the end of 1772 and into early 1773.[1][4]
The autograph bears the heading “Quartetto I,” but scholarship cautions that the Roman numerals (I–VI) were probably added later—very plausibly by Leopold Mozart—after the pieces existed and needed ordering, rather than as evidence of a planned “cycle” begun at a specific stop on the road.[4] The quartet was not published in Mozart’s lifetime; the Köchel-Verzeichnis records a first print in 1792 (Artaria & Co.), underscoring that these youthful quartets were not initially launched into the European market with the self-consciousness of a later opus.[1]
Form and Musical Character
Instrumentation
- Strings: violin I, violin II, viola, violoncello[1]
Movements
- I. Allegro (D major)
- II. Andante (A major)
- III. Molto allegro (D major)[3]
I. Allegro
The opening movement is often described as unusually restless in its harmonic itinerary for such an early quartet, with key changes that momentarily “tilt” the listener away from D major’s sunny stability. Particularly striking is Mozart’s use of an interrupted cadence (a deceptive turn away from an expected close) as a witty, time-buying gesture—an early example of how cadence, not only melody, can become a dramatic device.[3] Within the generally violin-led texture, Mozart also tries brief imitative writing, as though testing how far quartet rhetoric can move from accompaniment toward dialogue.
II. Andante (A major)
The slow movement, set in the dominant key, exemplifies the Italianate “song without words” ideal: clear phraseology, light accompaniment, and a cantabile line that feels adjacent to Mozart’s operatic instinct. Here, the interest lies less in learned counterpoint than in balance and breath—how the inner parts shade harmony and how the cello can do more than simply mark the bass.
III. Molto allegro
The finale restores D major with quicksilver energy. Even when the thematic material is compact, Mozart’s pacing—how he tightens transitions and aims for a clean, decisive finish—shows a composer already thinking about momentum as form. In performance, the movement benefits from treating articulation and dynamic contrast as structural tools: the “spark” is not decoration but the means by which this small-scale ending achieves inevitability.
Reception and Legacy
K. 155 remains outside the mainstream “great quartet” narrative because it precedes the moment when Mozart absorbed Haydn’s Op. 20 quartets and began writing four-movement works with a more explicitly egalitarian instrumental conversation.[1] Yet that is exactly why it matters. Heard on its own terms—as an Italian travel-era chamber piece—it reveals Mozart learning in public: trying harmonic feints, experimenting with imitation, and translating theatrical instinct into the intimate medium of four string players.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
It also serves as a useful “before” portrait for listeners who know the later Viennese quartets (K. 387–465) and the Prussian set (K. 575–590). The early quartet’s fast–slow–fast plan and first-violin prominence are not shortcomings so much as the stylistic ground from which Mozart would later depart. In that sense, String Quartet in D major, K. 155 is best approached not as a miniaturized version of the mature masterpieces, but as a vivid document of the 16-year-old Mozart listening, adapting, and—already—surprising.
[1] Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, Köchel-Verzeichnis entry for KV 155 (key, instrumentation, dating range, autograph and first print information).
[2] Wikipedia overview of the “Milanese Quartets” K. 155–160 (group context and general dating).
[3] Wikipedia article on *String Quartet No. 2 (Mozart)* (movement list; note on key changes and interrupted cadence).
[4] Henle Blog (scholarly editorial discussion) on the uncertain “Bozen” attribution and later-added Roman numerals in the autographs of K. 155–160.