K 575 String Quartet No 21 in D Major,

The String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K. 575, was written  by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in June 1789. Known as The Violet. It is the first of the Prussian Quartets. The quartet was written for and dedicated to the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm II, an amateur cellist, and was written in a similar style to the quartets of Joseph Haydn. Mozart and his friend Karl Lichnowsky met the king in Potsdam in April 1789. Mozart played before the king in Berlin on 26 May 1789, before returning to Vienna. This string quartet is a popular piece in the repertoire today and written at the peak of Mozart's talents as a chamber music composer. It is considered to be in a more relaxed style than the six quartets dedicated to Haydn. The title Das Weilchen, or The violet, comes from a song Mozart wrote in June of 1785 to a poem by Goethe. The melody can be heard in this String Quartet.

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