report on Mozart's Early String Quartets (Harmonia Mundi) is a comprehensive recording project that captures the composer's formative years in the genre, specifically works written between 1770 and 1773. Album Overview Release Date: October 27, 2005. Label: Harmonia Mundi (Catalogue No. HMI 987060.62).
Notably fast Andantes and finales that often "tear away" at top speed.
The most significant work in the early set, featuring a complex closing fugue.
The quartet used a matching set of classical-period bows for this recording, acquired through a Borletti-Buitoni Trust award. Critical Reception Reviews for this specific set were polarized:
Reviewers from Gramophone praised the quartet's ability to adapt their style to the teenage Mozart, highlighting the "unusual musical insight" and lack of sentimentality.
The ensemble adopted a for these teenage works, marked by:
Critics at Classics Today were much harsher, describing the approach as having "clunky phrasing" and "minimal vibrato" that made for a "real chore" to hear, particularly in the D minor quartet K. 173. Track Highlights Notable Features Quartet No. 1 in G, K. 80