Mozart: String Duos, Trios, & Quintets

[Valentino]

Not PI by instrument sound. Modern. Superbly strong playing. I love this disc.

Superbly video-taped performances of both Mozart Quartets by the Fauré Quartett are on youtube

Ah! Thanks!

[Gurn Blanston]

Of course, I do especially like the Opening of the g-minor. Gurn, this may be the piece I was looking for back when we were having that Classical/Romantic talk. I didn't know that the PQ4T 'genre'(is that right?) was basically a Shobert/Mozart Invention? Wait a minute, didn't Shobert and family all die from poison mushrooms?? Hmmm.

Well, as much as anything you've ever said, this makes sense to me. There is a certain aura projected by this work that a highly imaginative mind could construe as the Romantic 'minor ideal' sort of thing. I honestly believe that Mozart would have thought of it as a fine piano quartet that happened to be in g minor, but hey, what does he know?

Looking at Schobert's entry in Grove... it is hard to see him as an inventor of the piano quartet as such. There is this;

Opus 7 - [3] Sonates en quatuor, hpd, with 2 vn, vc ad lib, 1764; no.1 R; no.2 ed. in Collegium Musicum, 1 (Leipzig, c1925); no.3 ed. in Turrentine (1962)

In the style of the day, there was no viola, much like Haydn's String Trios being with 2 violins and cello. But even though the parts are marked "ad libitum" they still weren't composed in the sense that we think of with modern chamber music. FYI though, in an oddity of chronology, Beethoven's 3 quartets, WoO 36 1-3 were actually composed a couple of months before the publishing of Mozart's pair, but since they were never published (and as far as is known, never even played) they don't really qualify for title of "earliest modern piano quartet". I sure do like them though, particularly the C major one. 

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Now playing:
L'Archibudelli - Schubert Sonata in a for Piano & Arpeggione D 821 2nd mvmt - Adagio

[snyprrr]

but hey, what does he know?

exactly

[snyprrr]

I changed the Thread. Anyone wanna bite?

[Herman]

  But truth is, if pressed to only keep one recording of these quartets  it would be the one with Dezso Ranki at the piano.

I agree with this. I had lived with the BAT+ recording for twenty years, regarding it as the standard, till I got acquainted with the 1979 recording by Deszo Ranki and the Eder Quartet, and it just has so much more urgency and drama.

The BAT is a perfectly fine recording, I love the piano quartets, but Pressler et al have this habit of finishing every phrase neatly and orderly, and then start again, and somehow detracts from the drama of this music.

Add to this that de Ranki is available on a superbudget Apex release, and it's a no-brainer.

[snyprrr]

I agree with this. I had lived with the BAT+ recording for twenty years, regarding it as the standard, till I got acquainted with the 1979 recording by Deszo Ranki and the Eder Quartet, and it just has so much more urgency and drama.

The BAT is a perfectly fine recording, I love the piano quartets, but Pressler et al have this habit of finishing every phrase neatly and orderly, and then start again, and somehow detracts from the drama of this music.

Add to this that de Ranki is available on a superbudget Apex release, and it's a no-brainer.

That's the one I got. I'm surprisingly liking Mozart a lot lately, and these pieces in particular, along with the PTs.

[Leo K.]

I'll be going through recordings, traditional MI and perhaps a few PI ones, of Mozart's piano quartets, starting with this lively and romantic-like account:


Arthur Rubenstein and the Guarneri Quartet

It is perhaps my favorite, it is so autumnal, played slower, with the Guarneri playing rather romantically with a warm tone in contrast to Rubenstein's amazing icey tone.

Great 

[xochitl]

ive only heard the piano trios in the Mutter/Previn/Muller-Schott cd

any good?  i really liked what i heard

[Mandryka]

Anyone know any really special recordings of the wind quintet K 452? Everyone loves Rudolph  Serkin but surely there must be some satisfying alternatives on record by now.

[Jo498]

For very vivacious piano playing: Kocsis (+ Beethoven piano/wind quintet and a string version of the Beethoven)
For woodwinds historical instruments can add lots of color and flavor (and spin...), I think Levin + whatever HIP winds is the most highly regarded. TBH I cannot find it right now, maybe I never had it and it was only recommended very highly to me and I planned to get it, but never actually bought it.
Have to search more thoroughly, I thought I had more recordings of the piece, I used to be (and often still are) a big fan of woodwind music. I do have the Kocsis and for Mozart also a more conventional one with Brendel and a stellar woodwind cast with Holliger etc. on the shelves.

[Mandryka]

Is that a commercial recording with Kocsis? I'd quite like to hear it but I can't find it.

[Jo498]

Sure, it's a commercial studio recording.
I have EAN 3149025061966, that's a harmonia mundi "Quintana" CD HMA 1903020 from ca. 1995 (although I must have bought it a bit later in the late 1990s or even early 2000s).

listed as Import ASIN: B0000007OD

The link does not seem to work, but you can enter above code at amazon.de for a cover picture.

There is probably also a hungaroton issue, the recording took place in Budapest 1989. The wind players are Dienes, Berkes, Nagy, Gabor (Ensemble a vents de Budapes), the strings (in the string version of LvB op.16) of the Keller quartet.

As far as I see I don't own a recording with old instruments. Maybe I didn't like the sound combination with historic fortepiano as much as I had hoped and never got any. Or I have one and can't find it.

Could a moderator maybe remove "String" from the thread title...? Then it would be true again.

[Mandryka]

Thanks for that.

I hadn't noticed the word "string" in the title, sorry.

I've started to listen to this one

[Mandryka]

I picked up this today from symphonyshare, a transcription of k452 for octet, wonderful, charismatic old fashioned slinky performance. The don't make 'em like this any more! The guy who gave it says the Beethoven's even better, I haven't heard it yet.

[JBS]

Anyone know any really special recordings of the wind quintet K 452? Everyone loves Rudolph  Serkin but surely there must be some satisfying alternatives on record by now.

Andras Schiff recorded it with modern piano and modern instrument partners on Teldec (I think, I have it in a set which bears the Warner logo, corporate transformations being what they are).  The Decca Schiff/Mozart box has PI performances of the Kegelstatt trio, but no quintet

[JBS]

I picked up this today from symphonyshare, a transcription of k452 for octet, wonderful, charismatic old fashioned slinky performance. The don't make 'em like this any more! The guy who gave it says the Beethoven's even better, I haven't heard it yet.

Consortium Classicum has recorded a slew of Mozart divertimenti and serenades, including some of dubious attribution. There's a set available from EMI, but it does not include K 452.

They have done the Beethoven for EMI/Electrola. What may or may not be the same performance is available on MDG.  They have also done this version as part of a CPO set:

[Jo498]

There was also a K 452 with Consortium classicum. I used to have it on a cheap EMI disc with the Kegelstatt and the clarinet quintet, but got rid of it years ago in some downsizing operation. It seems so out of print that I cannot find any further information or cover pictures. Compared to Kocsis etc. it was rather lush and slowish.

[Mandryka]

There was also a K 452 with Consortium classicum. I used to have it on a cheap EMI disc with the Kegelstatt and the clarinet quintet, but got rid of it years ago in some downsizing operation. It seems so out of print that I cannot find any further information or cover pictures. Compared to Kocsis etc. it was rather lush and slowish.

Kocsis is by nature a speed demon.

[North Star]

Thanks for that.

I hadn't noticed the word "string" in the title, sorry.

I've started to listen to this one

How did you get along with it? This is the only recording that I know.

[Mandryka]

It's the only hip recording I know and that transforms things.  I'm at home again on Wednesday and I'll listen again then, see if I have anything to say.