String Quartet No. 15 (Mozart)

Though undated in the autograph,[1] it is believed to have been completed in 1783, while his wife Constanze Mozart was in labour with her first child Raimund.

[a] Constanze stated that the rising string figures in the second movement corresponded to her cries from the other room.

[3] Performances of the whole string quartet vary in length from 23 to 33 minutes.

It is in four movements: The first movement is characterized by a sharp contrast between the aperiodicity of the first subject group, characterized by Arnold Schoenberg as "prose-like", and the "wholly periodic" second subject group.

"[5] The main part of the Menuetto is in minuet and trio sonata form,[6] while "the contrasting major-mode Trio ... is ... almost embarrassingly lightweight on its own ... [but] makes a wonderful foil to the darker character of the Minuet.