MOZART: String Quartets, K. 170-171 and K. 421

MOZART: String Quartets, K. 172-173 and K. 575, 'Prussian No

MOZART: String Quartets, K. 168-169 and K. 589, 'Prussian N

Classical Music

MOZART String Quartet No. 18. String Quintet in D, K 593 1 • Brentano Str Qrt; Hsin-Yun Huang (va) 1 • AEON 747 (62:25)


Chamber music enthusiasts not yet familiar with the Brentano String Quartet have a rare treat in store. Soon after joining forces in 1992, the quartet won the Cleveland Quartet and Naumburg prizes. Today they continue a rigorous schedule of international tours. As with all the finest quartets, Brentano’s members—violinists Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin, violist Misha Amory, and cellist Nina Maria Lee—are individually gifted players of the first rank. Their latest release is an unusual pairing of one of Mozart’s quartets dedicated to Haydn with the D-Major viola Quintet.


From the initial statement of the primary thematic material in the A-Major Quartet, the Brentano is at pains to give each line its individual expressive shape and proportion. Every gesture is imbued with meaning; every harmonic progression has a sense of inevitable forward momentum. The variations of the extended slow movement unfold as a series of vividly individual characters. The rich polyphonic textures of the Allegro non troppo finale, reflecting Mozart’s involvement with Bach’s music at the time, emerge in luminous colors and with breathtaking clarity.


Since one rarely encounters a string quartet followed by a quintet in either performances or recordings, hearing K 593 on the heels of the A-Major Quartet is astonishing: what an amplification of texture Mozart creates with the addition of another mezzo voice. The slow introduction to the opening Allegro is touching in its tenderness and uncertainty. In the Adagio, the dead-center intonation makes the chains of suspensions almost heart-rending. The Minuet, one of Mozart’s finest, is filled with contrast: savor, for instance, the delicacy of the pizzicatos in the Ländler-like trio. The joyous finale fairly bursts with ebullient vitality.


Technical values of the sound engineering, made at the Academy of Arts and Letters, one of New York City’s preferred recording venues, are extraordinarily high. All the nuances of the Brentano’s lean but fruity sound are evident. Antoine Mignon’s notes are evocative and well translated. Ultimately, of course, the performances are what matters. This is playing that, while employing modern instruments, is fully cognizant of the ways and means of 18th-century bows and gut strings. Vibrato is never applied reflexively, but appropriately functions as but one element of an arsenal of expressive devices. Put another way, this is a modern ensemble that has internalized the lessons of period-instrument practice, and with stunning results. These are intellectually cogent performances that never lose sight of the music’s inherent kinesthetic pleasures. Very highly recommended.


FANFARE: Patrick Rucker

MOZART Piano Sonatas: in c, K 457; in C, K 545; in B?, K 333. Rondos: in F, K 494; in D, K 485; in a, K 511 • Marcia Hadjimarkos (fp) • AVIE 2138 (76:29)


The best compass, it seems to me, for successful traversal of Mozart’s piano music is constant reference to and evocation of his operatic style. If some gesture cannot conceivably be accomplished by the voice, accompanied by a late 18th-century pit orchestra, chances are it is an anachronism and has no place within Mozart’s keyboard textures. Listening to Avie’s remarkable new release of three sonatas and three rondos by Mozart, played superbly by Marcia Hadjimarkos, the imagination repeatedly roams to the operatic stage where, of the generations after Monteverdi and prior to Verdi and Wagner, the Austrian master reigns supreme.


A native of Oregon, Hadjimarkos earned degrees at the University of Iowa before pursuing her studies at the Paris Conservatoire with Jos van Immerseel; she has specialized in performing on the fortepiano and clavichord since the 1980s. One of the more appealing aspects of Hadjimarkos’s interpretations is her exploitation of the richly varied registers of her instrument (in this case a replica of a 1793 Sebastian Lengerer fortepiano by Christopher Clarke). Mozart himself was keen to mine this expressive potential on the pianos of his day; this tendency constitutes a veritable hallmark of his style that unfortunately is all but lost on modern pianos. Hadjimarkos never neglects expressive nuance in melodic inflections and her varied strategies of attack and release result in a realm of beautifully realized legato and detached effects. The lavishly applied variants—to the repeat of the exposition of the C-Major Sonata and indeed to each thematic repetition in the D-Major Rondo, to cite but two examples—seem both appropriate and inevitable. Nor does Hadjimarkos shy from engaging the una corda mechanism of her fortepiano: witness its highly effective use for long stretches in the F-Major Rondo and in the Andante of the C-Major Sonata.


As a player, Hadjimarkos remains rooted “in the moment,” lending her performances a refreshing emotional immediacy. Inevitably, one comes across the curious interpretive choice. At the beginning of the development in the first movement of the C-Minor Sonata, for instance, Hadjimarkos lifts the dampers in the ascending triad, the central thematic material of the entire movement, which she plays (appropriately) secco elsewhere in the exposition and recapitulation.


The recording was made in Chenôves, France, in August 2004. The parish church there has a sweet, flattering acoustic for the Clarke fortepiano. The engineers have done a marvelous job and the sound is dimensional and clear. Brian Robins wrote the engaging booklet notes, to which Christopher Clarke contributed information on his fortepiano.


This is living, breathing Mozart interpretation of a very high order, simultaneously innocent of “received wisdom” or “tradition” (which, as Artur Schnabel was fond of saying, is nothing but a collection of bad habits) and constantly informed by obvious immersion in the music of earlier masters, including C. P. E. Bach and Haydn. Those who still prefer their Mozart on the modern concert grand will no doubt continue to enjoy the performances of Schnabel (Music & Arts Programs of America 1193) and what perhaps remains the all-around best complete recording of the sonatas, that of Lili Kraus (Sony 88808). But those with an ear for the manifold beauties of the instrument that Mozart knew and loved—the late 18th-century Viennese action piano—are not likely to find more imaginatively realized, full-blooded, or loving readings than these presented by Marcia Hadjimarkos. Very highly recommended.


FANFARE: Patrick Rucker

Ondine is pleased to announce a long-term recording collaboration with German violinist Christian Tetzlaff, internationally recognized as one of the leading soloists of his generation. The selection of these sonatas for piano and violin by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart demonstrate distinctly the composer's ingeniousness and show a wide range and strong ambiguity of emotions.

Marie and Veronica Kuijken play historical pianofortes for this recording of Mozart four-hand pieces. The instrument dictates, so to speak, what can and cannot be done; as its touch is much lighter than that of a modern piano, it is also much easier to gracefully play the virtuosic fast passages. The Kuijken sisters explore the limits of the pianoforte, both literally and regarding sound volume. A splendid, deeply musical, and refined recording!

Classical Music

MOZART: Solemn Vespers

Up to and including Mozart, one important task for every composer not employed by the Church was to entertain. Much of Mozart’s best-loved music consists of occasional works intended for receptions and parties, balls and banquets, ceremonies and celebrations. These pieces are known to us under a number of different names: serenades, divertimenti, Nachtmusik and notturni are just some examples. In so far as these are genres, the distinctions between them are often blurred and many of them seem to have been used more or less interchangeably. But when the music is so fresh and immediate, labelling it becomes less important. In 1778, Leopold Mozart – who never missed an opportunity to impart his wisdom – wrote to his son describing what characterizes a successful piece: ‘Short, easy and popular… written in a natural, flowing and easy style – and at the same time bearing the marks of sound composition.’ That this recipe was something Wolfgang had already mastered six years earlier becomes obvious when one listens to any of the three Divertimentos recorded here, and it’s equally clear that he hadn’t forgotten it when he composed Eine kleine Nachtmusik ten years later. What Leopold doesn’t mention is playfulness, another quality that Mozart had in spades, and which Terje Tønnesen and his Camerata Nordica explore in their performances, allowing a plaintive Swedish nyckelharpa (‘keyed fiddle’) to be heard in the trio section in Eine kleine Nachtmusik and giving the timpanist an opportunity to rock the party in the closing rondo of Serenata notturna.

MOZART Serenades: in D, K 239, “Serenata notturna”; in G, K 525, “Eine kleine Nachtmusik.” Divertimento in B, K 287 • Patrick Cohën-Akenine (vn), cond; Les Folies Francaises • ALPHA 092 (71:10)


Les Folies Francaises is a group of 18 musicians here led by violinist Patrick Cohën-Akenine in three occasional works, two very famous, and one relatively neglected. Perhaps neglected is not the ideal word for the Divertimento in B, yet it has received infinitely fewer recordings than the “Serenata notturna” and the ever-popular “Eine kleine Nachtmusik.” I have all three in lovely recordings by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, several in distinguished recordings by Colin Davis, Eugen Jochum, and there are more modern recordings, equally charming, by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. In fact, the choices are vast.


Les Folies Francaises offers early-music balances and transparency. The timpani are prominent in the opening march of the “Serenata notturna,” which was recorded in a resonant space that lets the drum sound unfold. The engineers were also alert to the conversational quality of this Serenade and of the other two pieces. We hear the solos strings separated, though not excessively, from the larger group in a way I find effective and even illuminating. The echo effects, or something like them, in “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” are especially well done. The performances are perky, clear, dance-like, and meant to charm rather than overwhelm. I never yearn for a larger group, or a more imposing sound. Without knowing for sure, one begins to believe that this was the way Mozart intended these pieces to be played.


FANFARE: Michael Ullman

MOZART: Serenade No. 9, 'Posthorn' / Notturno

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

The first thing you notice is the vibrant sound, the ensemble's immediacy and depth, giving a realistic spatial and sonic picture of the array of musicians and instruments performing in a very complementary acoustic. Then you have to appreciate the robust rhythmic character and clean articulation in the opening March K. 189, the companion piece to the following Serenade K. 185. Indeed, throughout the program you get the sure impression that these performers know and love Mozart, putting sufficient energy into each movement of each piece, granting each the appropriate character of Menuet or March, Andante grazioso or Allegro. The orchestra's gentle way with the thematic rhythms in the Serenade's Andante grazioso and the subtlety with which the players (and conductor) highlight this movement's slight but important mood shifts is a pure pleasure to hear.

Violinist/director Alexander Janiczek asks for tempos that neither blaze nor plod nor obscure the happy spirit of these primarily youthful works. As a soloist in the two Rondos and the lovely Adagio K. 261 Janiczek also provides tasteful cadenzas that highlight his expertly executed, personable, open-hearted style. And who can fail to be impressed with the Divertimento K. 113, a remarkably "mature" piece of orchestral writing that shows a 15-year-old composer already in control of techniques and thematic devices that would reappear in later, more famous, more extensively developed forms. This is a very well-played, thoughtfully programmed recording of works that are all too often ruined by casual, matter-of-fact treatment; if its primary purpose is entertainment, which it should be, then it succeeds admirably.

– ClassicsToday