Mozart String Quartets
classical CD · categorised by title
RRP £19.55 historic list price — see live Amazon pricing below
- Composer
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Performers
- Quartetto Italiano
- Label
- Philips
- Discs
- 8
- Barcode
- 0028946226223
Amazon.co.uk Having Mozart's entire quartet output together makes sense, particularly when the performances are as elegant and eloquent as these, and the recording wears its three decades so well. OK, so the first 13 quartets, all written before Mozart was 17, aren't works you'll play often, but the Quartetto Italiano give you what there is to say about them. The 10 mature quartets are Mozart at or near his best, taking up the challenge set by Haydn and meeting it head on. The quartets between K387 and K465 were dedicated to the older master, and bring a depth to the medium that Mozart didn't equal again. If K387 is Mozart as his most Haydn-ish, K464 and K465 (the famous Dissonance) find him at ease in his own language. After the delightful K499 (the Hoffmeister), Mozart's last three, so-called Prussian quartets (1789-90) find him achieving miracles giving the cello a major say in the music-making, pleasing his royal patron in the process. These are inward-looking pieces, still underrated. Get to know them in this excellent and constantly pleasurable set. --Richard Whitehouse
This recording is part of the ClassicalMusicStore.co.uk heritage catalogue. The store is no longer trading, but you can find this title — and thousands of other classical and jazz recordings — at a specialist retailer.
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