Mozart: Piano Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

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These are unusually expansive works, their first movements each close on 15 minutes' music, prolific in their thematic matter and richly developed. They demand playing that shows a grasp of their... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Release Date: 19th May 2003
Catalogue No: CDA67373
Label: Hyperion
Length: 62 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

October 2003

Editor's Choice

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Mozart: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, K478

Work length29:38

$3.30

$4.50

$7.65

Paul Lewis (piano)
Leopold String Trio

I. Allegro

Track length14:37

$1.10

$1.50

$3.05

II. Andante

Track length7:27

$1.10

$1.50

$2.30

III. Rondo: Allegro

Track length7:34

$1.10

$1.50

$2.30

Mozart: Piano Quartet No. 2 in E flat major, K493

Work length33:17

$3.30

$4.50

$7.65

Paul Lewis (piano)
Leopold String Trio

I. Allegro

Track length14:44

$1.10

$1.50

$3.05

II. Larghetto

Track length9:31

$1.10

$1.50

$2.30

III. Allegretto

Track length9:02

$1.10

$1.50

$2.30

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Mozart at his most fetching! Neither Beethoven in his maturity nor Haydn wrote for the piano quartetpiano with string trioyet this oddly neglected instrumental combination inspired Mozart to pen these mature works that were to be the first masterpieces of the genre. Mozart delights in having richer textures than in the more common piano trio and the wider variety of sonorities than in the string quartet. Indeed, so much did he enjoy himself in the composition that he lost the commission to write the last two of the three works here after the publisher Hoffmeister found the first too intricate and difficult for the amateur market! (Hoffmeister did at least let the composer keep the advance he had received!) But his enthusiasm pushed him to write them anyway and what has come down to us makes a wonderful compendium of Mozart's genius, his resourceful technical felicity as well as that deft kaleidoscope of emotional narrative. Following the Leopold Trio's acclaimed renderings of the great String Divertimento (CDA67246), this release will for many be a revelation and for all of us a source of deep gratification. Paul Lewis, a pupil of Alfred Brendel and here making his Hyperion debut, is by training and temperament steeped in the Viennese classics, bringing to these special works both the authority and youthfulness they merit.

Reviews

2010

These are unusually expansive works, their first movements each close on 15 minutes' music, prolific in their thematic matter and richly developed. They demand playing that shows a grasp of their scale, playing that makes plain to the listener the shape, the functional character of the large spans of the music.
Paul Lewis and the Leopold String Trio, playing on modern instruments, excel in this, with their feeling for its structure and its tension, particularly in the first movement of the G minor, and especially at its great climax at the end of the development section, which is delivered with a compelling power and a sense of its logic. This performance is exemplified by its carefully measured tempo, its poise and its subtle handling of the balance between strings and piano. The Andante is unhurried, allowing plenty of time for expressive detail; and the darker colours within the finale, for all its G major good cheer, are there too.
The spacious and outgoing E flat work is no less sympathetically done, with plenty of feeling for its special kind of broad lyricism; particularly attractive are the gently springy rhythms and the tenderness of the string phrasing in the first movement, and Lewis's beautifully shaped phrasing in the Larghetto. A real winner, this disc: warmly recommended.

Mozart: Piano Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

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