Mozart String Quartets

Having concluded its Haydn cycle, the Doric String Quartet plunges into Mozart, beginning late in the composer's career with the three so-called "Prussian" string quartets. These are noted for having been written at the behest of a cello-playing nobleman, for whom Mozart wrote especially elaborate cello parts. Those are placed in the service of dense contrapuntal webs that pose unusual challenges for the performers. Should these quartets be severe? Light-hearted? There is quite a range, probably more than for the other Mozart quartets.

Dissonance Quartet – the name already contains the thrill of transgression. But a dissonance, in which the parts momentarily diverge from triadic harmony, is the necessary condition to achieve an aesthetic of four-part conflict, such as was sought after in the genre of classical string quartet. Mozart’s work in C Major with the “dissonance” epithet is the highlight of a group of six quartets in which he responded to the music of his colleague Joseph Haydn and the latter’s concept of discursive thematic work in a four-part texture.