Amadeus Quartet & Cecil Aronowitz - Mozart: The String Quintets (2005/2017) [Hi-Res]

It is often recalled how Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart influenced each other, but the interaction between Mozart and Haydn’s younger brother Michael (1737–1806) receives less attention. We owe Mozart’s two duos for violin and viola to a good turn he did for Michael, who could not complete a commission for six of these pieces. Mozart borrowed one of Michael’s symphonies when he was similarly unable to finish two of his own on time: he added a slow introduction and for a while the hybrid was known as his Symphony no. 37. We have only to hear the open- ing of Michael’s Requiem to realize where Mozart found the sound world for his own Requiem. And we owe Mozart’s string quintets – his finest body of chamber music – to the ex- ample of the younger Haydn, a fellow employee of the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg. …

"The Amadeus is distinguished by fine playing and the recordings are remarkably successful in their CD transfers, with only a slight degree of thinness on top to date the earlier sessions. The Amadeus accounts of the C minor (K.406) and C major (K.515) works are particularly searching and spontaneous, and obviously much thought and skill have gone into the matter of internal balance as well as the interpretations. Their account of the G minor (K.516) with its Elysian slow movement has also been admired, and there is no question about the refinement and polish of the playing, both here and in the D major (K. 593)." (Penguin Guide, 1992)

Cecil Aronowitz, 2nd viola
Amadeus Quartet

Digitally remastered