大象传媒

The period instrument Consone Quartet bring their trademark freshness to Mozart and Mendelssohn, live at Wigmore Hall.

Mozart's D minor quartet is one of the set of six he dedicated to Haydn, the acknowledged master of the form, in 1785. Unusually, it took Mozart nearly three years of hard work to complete the set. Of the six quartets, the D minor is the most dramatic, with telling nods to the Baroque composers Mozart had recently been introduced to and ending with a set of variations whose ambiguously jaunty theme can't seem to decide whether to be jolly or melancholy.

By 1823, when the 14-year-old Mendelssohn wrote his E flat major quartet, he was an experienced composer whose transcendent technique went far beyond the juvenilia Mozart was capable of at the same age. The quartet at once harks back to Haydn and Mozart and points forward with characteristic assurance to the uniquely sunny and lyrical style of Mendelssohn's mature music.

Presented by Martin Handley.

Mozart: String Quartet in D minor, K. 421
Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E flat major, Op. Posth.

Consone Quartet