Chiaroscuro Quartet

CD Chiaroscuro Quartet Chiaroscuro Quartet

This recording brings together two quartets composed almost forty years apart: Mozart's String Quartet K.465, "Dissonances", the last of the set of six quartets marking the apogee of Classicism that the composer dedicated to Joseph Haydn, and Schubert's Quartet in A minor, "Rosamunde", his first major string quartet, written at the dawn of Romanticism and in the shadow of Beethoven who, also in Vienna, was then composing the last of his quartets.
Mozart's String Quartet K.465, "Dissonances", has become one of Mozart's most famous string quartets because of its amazing introduction, the twenty-two-bar "Adagio" that gave the work its nickname. Beautiful though it is, however, the introduction is not the only marvel in this work, which is full of admirable passages from beginning to end.
Schubert's Quartet in A minor, "Rosamunde", marks the emergence of the poetics of the lied in the string quartet genre. This is shown first of all by Schubert's borrowings from his own output, which form a significant part of the quartet's basic material. After an implicit reference in the opening "Allegro" to "Gretchen" am Spinnrade, the slow movement quotes extensively the motif from a song of 1819, "Die Götter Griechenlands". Furthermore, the quartet is permeated by the nostalgic, intimate tone that is specific to the "lied", and Schubert succeeds in giving it something of the fleeting character that also typifies genre.