Search - Mozart, Moyzes Quartet, Stanislav Mucha :: String Quartet in B-Flat K.458 'The Hunt' and String Quartet in C Major K.465 'Dissonance'

Tragical, a little threatening ... and very well recorded

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 09/20/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For some reason, Naxos seems to have allowed this disc to go out of print; I cannot understand why, because it is one of the best-recorded Cds I have heard from them. Mozart was not 'into' string quartets the way his friend and colleague Haydn was, but he recognised the great value of this minimalistic form and published, in 1785, six quartets for two violins, viola and cello, dedicated to none other than Joseph Haydn, with whom he may well have played at one of their meetings in Vienna. The Moyzes Quartet, consisting of soloists from the Slovak Philharmonic, has here chosen two of the most popular of these quartets and gives them a faultless rendering that I find very satisfying. The popular names given to these pieces 'Hunt' and 'Dissonance' refer only to very brief passages, and this music is, in fact, quite different from anything else I have heard by Mozart: it often sounds tragical and a little threatening, and there is only a relatively brief amount of light relief. The whole is a pointer towards the arrival of the romantic period some years later. The stereo recording quality is wonderfully clear, so that each instrument can be closely followed. If you are, like me, discovering (late) 18th century music, you will not regret any trouble you may have to take to get hold of a copy of this disc. It will provide hours of educative and/or pensive listening."