Mozart String Quartets

Towards the end of his life, short of money and heavily in debt, Mozart had the opportunity to visit King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia – a famous patron of the arts and a keen and above-average musician. Mozart performed for the King and left with some cash and a commission for a set of six string quartets, of which these are the only three he completed. They are ground-breaking in the way in which Mozart utilised the voicing of the instruments. King Friedrich was a viola da gamba player turned cellist, and these works feature extensive melodies for the cello, usually in a high register, thus emancipating the cello from the bass line and introducing a more evenly blended texture.

…….With the recordings on this album, the Armida Quartet has reached the halfway mark in a project that seeks to intimately explore an entire mountain range:

The new album MOZART Vol. 2 of the Armida Quartet will be released on 28 June 2019 on CAvi-music. The recording was co-produced by Bayrischer Rundfunk BR-KLASSIK and features KV 80, KV 458 (The Hunt) and KV 499 (Hoffmeister Quartet) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A special feature for all string quartet fans is the use of the new Mozart Urtext Edition by G.Henle Verlag!

On this recording, the Engegard Quartet present three of Mozart’s six string quartets dedicated to Haydn, the so-called “Haydn” Quartets. The six “Haydn” Quartets were written between 1782-85, while Mozart enjoyed great popularity in Vienna. Mozart had written a series of quartets in his youth, but it had been almost ten years since he wrote the last one.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart could already lay claim to a long list of compositions when he wrote his earliest string quartet. At 14 years old, he conceived his G major quartet one evening in Lodi, near Milan. Similarly, other quartets on this recording appear to have been written on the spur of the moment, which does not mean they were written in a hurry, however. Joseph Haydn's achievements in this genre do not appear to have weighed heavily on his shoulders at that stage. K. 155-160 were also written in Italy, mostly in Milan, then the capital of the Habsburg duchy of Lombardy, and Italian influences are more easily discernible. The early K. 80 is a precursor to the later cycle of six quartets composed in late 1772 and early 1773 while on leave from the princely archbishop's court in Salzburg. Whereas K. 80 is in four movements, all the others are in three.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart could already lay claim to a long list of compositions when he wrote his earliest string quartet. At 14 years old, he conceived his G major quartet one evening in Lodi, near Milan. Similarly, other quartets on this recording appear to have been written on the spur of the moment, which does not mean they were written in a hurry, however.