Mozart's Quartets
Mozart's Piano Quartets
Gramophone Choice
Piano Quartets Nos 1 & 2
Paul Lewis (pf) Leopold String Trio
Hyperion CDA67373 (63' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
These are unusually expansive works, their first movements each close on 15 minutes’ music, prolific in their thematic matter and richly developed. They demand playing that shows a grasp of their scale, playing that makes plain to the listener the shape, the functional character of the large spans of the music.
Paul Lewis and the Leopold String Trio, playing on modern instruments, excel in this music, with their feeling for its structure and its tension, particularly in the first movement of the G minor, and especially at its great climax at the end of the development section, which is delivered with a compelling power and a sense of its logic. This performance is exemplified by its carefully measured tempo, its poise and its subtle handling of the balance between strings and piano. The Andante is unhurried, allowing plenty of time for expressive detail; and the darker colours within the finale, for all its G major good cheer, are there too.
The spacious and outgoing E flat work is no less sympathetically done, with plenty of feeling for its special kind of broad lyricism; particularly attractive are the gently springy rhythms and the tenderness of the string phrasing in the first movement, and Lewis’s beautifully shaped phrasing in the Larghetto.
Additional Recommendations
Flute Quartets – D, K285; G, K285a; C, K285b; A, K298
Emmanuel Pahud (fl) Christoph Poppen (vn) Hariolf Schlichtig (va) Jean-Guihen Queyras (vc)
EMI 556829-2 (59' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
There may be only one movement of any emotional weight, the B minor Adagio of the First Quartet, K285, but in that brief cantilena Pahud finds a mystery and a subtlety of dynamic shading that outshines almost any rival. For the rest he consistently conveys the fun in the writing here.
The A major work may run the dangerous course of parodying the banalities of the contemporaries whom Mozart despised, but Pahud still finds charm in the invention, helped by the warm, imaginative playing of his string partners. Pahud’s lighter, more sparkling playing, with his fresh, clear tone is preferable to Galway’s more romantic approach at generally broader speeds, and with phrasing more heavily underlined in characteristically full flute tone (RCA). Pahud also observes second-half repeats as well as first in the sonata-form first movements of the first three quartets.
String Quartets – Nos 4, 17 & 22
Jerusalem Quartet
Harmonia Mundi HMC90 2076 (76' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
‘Rather prim and formal throughout, and presents little variety in its part-writing’ – a verdict on K157 from Thomas F Dunhill in 1927. Well, formal perhaps in the first movement but prim it isn’t. Nor is the playing of the Jerusalem Quartet, whose attention to the shaping of paragraphs alleviates the inexperience of a youthful composer. Eventful, though, is the slow movement (marked Andante by Mozart père), from which the musicians extract an expression of feeling that doesn’t suggest immaturity.
Every repeat in all three works is observed. The expansion of scale is noticeable, particularly in K458. And it’s here that the Jerusalem begin to show their mettle. Something both grand and reflective is suggested in the first movement, grand in the ‘hunting’ motif of the exposition, reflective in the F major beginning of the development to which a touch of sobriety is added as the music sinks into F minor a little later. These artists aren’t stratified. Bowing varies from precise attack to breathy delicacy; and lines are supple, contoured through flexure of phase and the easing or tightening of pace without ever disrupting pulse.
Sound and balance throughout are realistic (but whereas the transfer level of these two works is high, that of K589 is low).
String Quartet No 17. Oboe Quartet. Horn Quintet
Nicholas Daniel (ob) Stephen Bell (hn) The Lindsays
ASV CDDCA968 (68' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
The Lindsays really make the Hunt Quartet sparkle. One could describe their approach as middle-of-the-road; they’re as meticulous as many period-instrument groups about details of phrasing, and avoid excessive accents and vibrato, yet their sound is modern, and the care over detail doesn’t preclude a very spontaneous approach in which the music’s feeling is compellingly communicated. In the Oboe Quartet Nicholas Daniel matches the string players’ care over articulation and detailed expression, and plays with exceptional technical polish and brilliance. His gleaming tone is capable of great expressive range. The Horn Quintet is perhaps not quite such an individual or remarkable work as the two quartets. And you may find yourself longing for the extra character and beauty that a fine performance with the natural horn would have had. Yet this is a highly recommendable reading, too. The recording is very lifelike.
String Quartets – Nos 20 & 22
Quatuor Mosaïques
Naïve E8834 (63' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
This release completes the Mosaïques’ recording of the 10 mature Mozart Quartets: an outstanding achievement. Apart from the clear, rich sound of the period instruments and the precise, beautiful tuning, what impresses about this Mozart-playing is the care for detail, the way each phrase is shaped so as to fit perfectly into context while having its own expressive nuances brought out clearly. This often leads the quartet to use more rubato, to make more noticeable breathing spaces between sentences than many other groups do.
In the first movements of both these quartets, for instance, the Mosaïques adopt a very similar tempo and tone to the Quartetto Italiano (Philips), but the Italians aren’t so rhythmically flexible. The Mosaïques make us listen to and appreciate the significance of each detail as it unfolds. With this approach there might be a danger of sounding contrived but even when adopting a mannered style, as in the Minuet of K499, the Mosaïques retain a strong physical connection with the music’s natural pulse – by comparison the Italiano here seem a trifle heavy and humourless.
The slow movements of both quartets are taken at a flowing pace, making possible an unusual degree of expressive flexibility. All repeats are made, including those on the Minuet’s da capo in K499. The longer the better when the playing is as exceptional as this.
