Haydn Quartett

Written between December 1782 and January 1785 the set of six string quartets which Mozart dedicated to Haydn are striking masterpieces, and that he meant them to be so is clear from the printed dedication to his older colleague. ''Dearest friend and famous man,'' he wrote, ''here are… these six sons of mine. They are the fruit of long and laborious effort. One thing has a little encouraged and comforted me: the hope, flatteringly whispered to me, that these musical works might one day be a joy to me… I therefore commend my children to you, hoping that they will not seem totally unworthy of your love.'' Furthermore, Mozart's choice of the medium seems appropriate since he and Haydn had on occasion played together as members of a string quartet, and both surely thought of it as a more refined vehicle for musical thought than the symphony orchestra.

“By far the most compelling interpretation of Mozart’s string quartets comes from Salzburg: there is scarcely any other group that is capable of covering the vast stylistic range of these works as convincingly and as vitally as the Hagen Quartett. The result is a recording that should still be valid in thirty years’ time.” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung)

For sheer finesse the Hagen is up there with its fellow Austrian ensemble the Alban Berg Quartet. The players' collective sonority - aptly slimmed down for Mozart - is elegantly honed, their ensemble and internal balance impeccable. No subtlety of Mozart's part-writing escapes them. The first two quartets of the Haydn set come off specially well.

There were two Alban Berg Quartetts: the ABQ that recorded for Teldec in the '70s and the one that recorded for EMI in the '80s, '90s, and '00s. The first ABQ and the second ABQ shared two members first violinist Günter Pichler and cellist Valentin Erben and a common approach to chamber music more intellectual than emotional, more restrained than explosive, and more deep-down satisfying than superficially thrilling.