putterings 375 < 376 > 377 index
staccato slurs, veerings unencumbered
...though it very soon veers off in its own direction. Mozart’s textural choice in this central section, with second violin and viola nonchalantly puttering away with staccato eighth-notes, provides a winning contrast to the long slurs that bind all four lines in the minuet itself. ₁
Instead of trying to rival the profundity of his introduction, he responds, in the Allegro proper, with an opening theme of unsurpassing simplicity played over puttering eighth-notes in the most unencumbered C-major imaginable. ₂
—
both instances in discussion of
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, String Quartet in C Major, Dissonance, K. 465 (1785, dedicated to Franz Joseph Haydn) in
James M. Keller, Chamber Music : A Listener’s Guide (2011) : 330 and 332