Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his Quartet in C major, K. 465 in 1785. The last of the six quartets Mozart dedicated to Haydn, it owes its Dissonant nickname to its slow, tense introduction, full of unresolved harmonies over a throbbing cello line. Soon enough, this disorienting Adagio gives way to the first movement's bright, Allegro main matter. The first violin sings out the short-phrased principal theme, which the other instruments soon pick up in contrapuntal imitation. A second, more jittery melody and a third in triplets all become fodder for a brief development section, although it's the first theme, now with a minor cast, that dominates the proceedings until the recapitulation soothes the troubled quartet—the exposition returning, of course, without the baggage of the "dissonant" introduction.
