This collection of ten compositions for string quartet by Mozart includes six pieces dedicated to Joseph Haydn and three pieces composed for the king of Prussia. The King of Prussia for whom Mozart composed some of these quartets for was by all accounts a Cellist of no mean ability; especially if one may judge by these works whose Cello parts are elaborate and demanding often soaring into the upper ranges leaving the viola to take up its momentarily abandoned role as bass instrument! Works include String Quartet No. 14 in G major K387 'Spring' String Quartet No. 15 in D minor K421 String Quartet No. 16 in E flat K428 String Quartet No. 17 inB flat major K458 'The Hunt' String Quartet No. 18 in A Major K464 'Drum' String Quartet No. 19 in C major K465 'Dissonance' String Quartet No. 20 in D major K499 'Hoffmeister' String Quartet No. 21 in D major K575 'Prussian No. 1' String Quartet No. 22 in B flat major K589 'Prussian No. 2' and String Quartet No. 23 in F Major K590 'Prussian No. 3'

The composer made this arrangement of the Third String Quartet for string orchestra in March 2003. The first performance was given by the Eos Orchestra New York conducted by Ken Selden in the Concert Hall Ethical CulturalSociety New York City on 24 April 2003.Quoting composer: In the summer of 1989 I composed a choral work Out of the Ruins for Agnieszka Piotrowska’s BBC2 documentary which dealt with the physical and emotional responsesof some of the inhabitants of Leninakhan to the earthquake which devastated Armenia the previous December. When he heard the recording of the work that I made with the Holy Echmiadzin Chorus under the fervent conducting of KhorenMeykhanejian Alex Balanescu suggested turning Out of the Ruins into a string quartet. There seemed no reason or opportunity to do this until I felt the need to add to the intensity of my experiences in Armenia the no lessprofound experience of witnessing the images of the Romanian revolution on television during the latter part of December 1989.Just as the structure of my Third String Quartet (1990) may connect it with the First so they alsoshare a debt to Thurston Dart (my professor at King’s College London between 1961 and 1965). It was Dart who had the inspiration to send me to Romania in 1965 ostensibly to study folk music. The volumes of transcriptions that Ibrought back with me had remained unopened until with this proposed ‘celebratory’ string quartet (though at the time it was difficult to know quite what to celebrate in postrevolutionary Romania) an occasion arose where I coulduse this material in what seemed to me was a non-exploitative manner. The compositional procedure was as follows: to take Out of the Ruins as a template on which the Romanian vocal or instrumental music would besuperimposed quite often stretched into new intervallic shapes through the demands of the completely pre-formed harmonic structure.

Par BARTOK BELA. Bartók?s Second String Quartet was composed ? with several long interruptions ? between 1915 and 1918, after he had spent several years almost solely devoted to collecting folk music. The melody and rhythms of the riotous middle movement ?Allegro, molto capriccioso? provide impressive testimony of how his research trips had taken him as far as North Africa. The first edition of this quartet, published in Vienna in 1920, contains a conspicuous number of errors that were only partially corrected in a later revision undertaken by Bartók. As late as the 1940s he noted changes in his personal copy of the score that have never previously appeared in print. These late changes by Bartók are taken into account in this definitive edition of the string quartets supervised by Bartók scholar László Somfai, with problematic passages in the sources carefully documented. It is the first-ever Urtext edition of this work. Sensible page turns and cue notes in the parts mean that this edition is ideal for exploring Bartók?s sound world in performance. / Date parution : 2023-05-06/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

'. . .this snazzy piece (filled with folky references and odd percussion effects) takes the cake - a terrific immediately entertaining and absorbing work.'San Francisco Chronicle (Heuwell Tircuit) 8 June 1986