While the theory of galant schematas is particularly effective in describing the compositional processes and harmonic figures characteristic of mid-18th-century pieces, it is also useful for interpreting the underlying melodic-harmonic archetypes of later works. Mozart's string quartets are thus fully in line with Viennese classicism, but their stylistic figures are inherited from simple schematas learned on the keyboard.

This paper focuses specifically on the beginnings of movements and deciphers the way Mozart proceeds to introduce the subject and immediately capture the audience's attention. The analysis focuses on Mozart's first seven quartets: K. 80 (1770), the Milanese Quartets (1772-1773), and the Quartets dedicated to Haydn (1782-1785), in order to observe the evolution of compositional techniques over a period of 15 years. Focusing on the first measures of each movement—i.e., the exposition of a first theme or its first phrase—mirroring Mirka's observation of the metrical strategies of the beginnings of Mozart and Haydn's instrumental pieces, this study aims to determine the different configurations of writing, their melodic-harmonic arrangement, the choices of textures, and, more broadly, the gestures at play in these beginnings of movements. Among these typical configurations, we will identify the galant schematas at play, their enrichments, their distortions, their interweaving, and their close relationships to phraseology (in particular Period and Sentence, the latter closely related to the Meyer, April, Pastorella, and Jupiter schematas).

In a systematic approach, at the heart of studies developing the theory of galant schematas (Gjerdingen, Byros, Rice), this work aims to shed additional light on studies devoted to Mozart's instrumental music. Between rhetorical analysis and topical analysis—which overlap in many ways with galant schematas analysis—and between harmonic analysis and analysis of textures and instrumental configurations, the aim is to establish a typology of instrumental gestures in Mozart's quartets. While musicologists interested in the theory of galant schematas have approached Mozart's corpus, and Mirka has endeavored to decipher the metrical originalities of the beginnings of movements, to date there has been no study focusing on the (galant) figures of openings, which Mozart also enriches with figures previously used as prolongations (Heartz, Quiescenza...).

By highlighting the systematic features and particularities of Mozart's opening quartets, this paper contributes to the pedagogy of musical composition, particularly in France, where Mozart's style is an essential part of composition classes, as well as the analysis of Mozart's style.

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Byros, Vasili, “Meyer's Anvil: Revisiting the Schemata concept”, Music Analysis, 31/3 (2012), pp. 273-346.

Gjerdingen, Robert O., Music in the Galant Style, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007.

Heartz, Daniel, Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720-1780, New York, Norton, 2003.

Mirka, Danuta, “Metre, phrase structure and manipulations of musical beginnings”, Communication in Eighteenth-Century Music, Danuta Mirka and Kofi Agawu (ed.), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 83-111.

Rice, John A. Rice, “The Heartz: A Galant Schema from Corelli to Mozart”, Music Theory Spectrum, 36/2 (2014), pp. 315-332.