Mozart: Quartets K.387 & 421 , Divertimento K.138
After a first disc devoted to Mozart quartets (awarded a ‘Choc de Classica’ and a ‘Diapason Decouverte’), a second to French music (Debussy, Ravel and Chausson) and a third to two quartets by Schubert, nos.10 and 14 (the mythical Death and the Maiden), the group founded by Nicolas Van Kuijk returns to its first love by recording more Mozart. This recording is the second part of an eventual triptych that will contain the six string quartets dedicated to Haydn: no.14 in G major, K387, the first of them, was composed in 1782, when Mozart had just arrived on the Viennese musical scene; no.15 in D minor K421, the second, is the only one in the minor mode and was completed in 1783 while his wife Constanze was in labour – she related that the rising intervals of the second movement recalled her cries from the room next door as he composed.