Finghin Collins - Mozart: Piano Quartets (2020) [Hi-Res]

Mozart’s Piano Quartets date from the mid 1780s – a period that also brought, among many other things, five of his major piano concerti (D minor K. 466; C major K. 467; E flat major K. 482; A major K. 488 & C minor K. 491), two important string quartets (including the Dissonance K. 465), and his opera Le nozze di Figaro.

While there were earlier incursions by less well-remembered figures into the piano quartet repertoire, it took Mozart to raise its status on to an unprecedented plateau. In his two quartets he found a way of giving each instrument - violin, viola, cello and piano - its rightful sense of independence.

According to the composer’s own catalogue, the K. 478 Quartet was completed on 16th October 1785 and was among a number of works requested by the Viennese publisher, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, who was also a composer. In it Mozart treats his four instrumentalists as equals, with the concerto-like piano part well balanced against the continuously interesting string writing.

However, Hoffmeister, hoping for something to suit the amateur market, was dissatisfied with what Mozart submitted, complaining the music was too difficult and that the public would never buy it. He told the composer to write in a more popular vein or else he would neither print anything further of his nor pay him. The disgruntled Mozart responded, “Then I will write nothing more, and grow hungry or maybe the devil take me!” But he did write another Piano Quartet, completing it on 3rd June 1786. This time the more obliging firm of Artaria published it.