Guarneri Quartet: the Mozart Recordings

Having begun my “journey” of the Sony Masterworks box set, Guarneri Quartet: The Complete Recordings 1965–2005, with a modest account of works by Joseph Haydn, I can now move on to the more generous attention paid to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This consists of ten string quartets, six viola quintets, and two piano quartets. The pianist is Artur Rubinstein, and three different violists contribute to the quintets. They are (in “order of appearance”) Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom, and Kim Kashkashian, each accounting for two of the quintets.

Album cover showing the members of the Guarneri Quartet on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (from the Amazon.com Web page for this album)

I must confess that I have a particular soft spot for the quintets. One of my colleagues at the campus radio station at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology liked to say that a viola is what a violin wants to be when it grows up. On a less facetious note, Mozart biographies inform us that he sent much of his time in Vienna playing string quartets with his colleagues (one of whom as Joseph Haydn); and his preferred instrument as the viola. All six of the quintets were recorded during performances at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The other recorded “collection” consists of another set of six, this time the quartets that Mozart dedicated to Joseph Haydn. These are as follows:

• K. 387 in G major
• K. 421 in D minor
• K. 428 in E-flat major
• K. 458 in B-flat major
• K. 464 in A major
• K. 465 in C major

Two other albums account for the composer’s last four quartets:

• K. 499 in D major
• K. 575 in D major
• K. 589 in B-flat major
• K. 590 in F major

That leaves only one other album in the collection. This is the Rubinstein performance of the two Mozart piano quartets, K. 478 in G minor and K. 493 in E-flat major. The single violinist for these performances in John Dalley.

It is important to note that this ensemble was formed prior to the rise of interest in historically informed performances. In many respects twentieth-century style reflected back on nineteenth-century performance practices and instruments. However, those that are not “Mozart purists” will find much to savor in the approaches that Guarneri took to that composer’s rhetorical turns. There is no questioning that these recordings now serve as “time machines.” Nevertheless, since they date from a period when I was just beginning to get my head around chamber music, I have no problems with traveling in that time machine!