Mozart String Quintets

This first "live" recording of the Prazák Quartet was made in February, 2000 to commemorate the ensemble's 2000th concert. The Prazáks are joined by violist Hatto Beyerlé, best known for his dozen years as the violist of the Alban Berg Quartet. Together, they match the finest performances of these masterpieces on disc. Here is playing with intensity and power that does not exclude delicacy and genuine feeling.

Since its formation in 1982 the Salomon String Quartet has established its position as one of the world's leading ensembles specialising in the historical performance of the classical string quartet repertoire. The quartet has toured extensively in Europe, the USA, the Far East, Israel and Australia as well as making regular appearances at British music societies and festivals. It has made many records for Hyperion and given numerous radio and television broadcasts. In addition to the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, which forms the basis of its repertoire, the Salomon Quartet has always been committed to the exploration and performance of the wealth of quartet music written by their contemporaries.

Mozart’s last string quintets, K593 and K614, were completed during the 12 months preceding his death in December 1791. The medium held a special fascination for Mozart; his Quintet in C, K515 (1787), is arguably the richest, and certainly the longest of all his chamber compositions. The first of the works recorded here by Hausmusik, K593, opens with a discursive introduction, unparalleled elsewhere in the cycle of six quintets.

As in its Schubert recording in 2018, the Quatuor van Kuijk likes to delve into a composer's youthful output and then measure his evolution by confronting it with his mature works. Hence, after recording two of Mozart's early string quartets in 2016, the French group, here joined by violist Adrien La Marca, voted Revelation at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2014, now offers the String Quintets K515 and K516. These two large-scale works dominate Mozart's instrumental output in the year 1787, which ended with the premiere of Don Giovanni. They show us a composer at the height of his creative powers, in a genre to which he had not returned for fourteen years and which he herebrought to a high degree of formal perfection.

The Klenke Quartett, based in Berlin and Thuringia, was founded in 1991 at the Musikhochschule Weimar. Since then, and still in its original formation, it has enriched the concert life “as one of the most distinguished European ensembles.“ (Gewandhaus-Magazin). The quartet regularly plays with violist Harald Schoneweg. Their close artistic bond and homogeneity in interpretation makes this new complete recording of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Six String Quintets, released in a premium 3-CD box set, a recording with reference character, unveiling all the nuances between joy and contemplation, the distinct refinement and condensation, and most of all of all the soundscapes and compositional techniques in Mozart’s Quintets.

Mozart’s string quintets represent "some of his most sophisticated musical thinking … wonderful music, exhilarating to hear” (from the liner notes by Eric Bromberger). With this three album set, the Alexander String Quartet and Paul Yarbrough complete their Mozart compendium.