W. A. MOZART (1756-1791) : HAYDN QUARTETS (I) - No 15, 17 (Hunt), 19 (Dissonant) - PRAZAK Quartet

Three of the six ‘Haydn’ Quartets in which, like instrumental mini-operas, Mozart achieves perfection in the individualisation of voices and ‘work on lyric continuity’. Here the most vehement emotion coexists with the rigueur an evolving form in the K. 421. With ‘The Hunt’, he pretends to come back to the galant style so as to better ridicule it with a thoroughly ‘Haydnian’ humour and mastery of speech. Only the K. 465 begins with a slow introduction—whose famous ‘dissonances’ put off the subscribers of the era—that contrasts with the luminous style of the rest of the work. A novelty: the symphonic ‘amplification’ of the closing movements that sweep away the traditional rondos and all-too-human miasmas with an irresistible need for triumph with an almost-insolent ‘Donjuanism’.

PRD/DSD 250 242