I agonised a little over which Mozart string quintet we should start with. After a few days of dithering, I decided to go with the most famous – it’s the one you can see the last movement of lurking inside our logo above – the Quintet in g, K. 516.

There’s something about the key of g-minor that brings out the composer’s darker moods; so it’s a fairly angst-ridden piece (or, at least, the first three and a bit movements are, until the much discussed ‘happy’ ending in G-major, that is).

A chance to listen to the entire piece without (hooray!) my irritating voice-over:

1. Allegro 0.00
2. Menuetto and Trio. Allegretto. 11:15
3. Adagio ma non troppo 16:23
4. Adagio — Allegro. 24:03

Score