Quartetto “Joseph Joachim”
59:30
Pan Classics PC 0379
THESE SIX QUARTETS include four which were, until relatively recently, thought to be Mozart – the correct identification of a set of parts in Padua, which featured on both composers’ travelling itineraries in the 1770s helped clear up the confusion and allow the music to be correctly attributed. Schuster was eight years Mozart’s senior and a celebrated violinist himself. On this re-release of a 2001 recording, the Joseph Joachim quartet – on period instruments – give first-class performances of these six fine works, all but one in three movements; the exception, no. 4 in A, consists of an Allegro assai and an Andantino con cinque variazioni. The recorded sounds is very crisp with lots of detail without any of the breathing noises one typically hears in recordings of string quartets.
Brian Clark