The InfoDad blog awards ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (their top rating) to our Mozart: The Final Quartets, Apotheosis Vol. 1 recording:
“ The great chamber music of the past continues to involve and thrill performers and listeners alike, and to be subject to multiple interpretations that emphasize varying elements of works that are multifaceted and have genuine depth. … Quartet No. 20 in D, K. 499, dates to 1786 and is something of an “outlier” among the quartet series, a kind of quasi-pastoral way station with decided proto-Romantic elements that the Alexander String Quartet clearly enjoys bringing forward. … The Alexander String Quartet’s approach to [the remaining works] is much the same as it is to K. 499, in terms of pacing the works with care and balancing the parts so that the inner voices get considerable prominence – as is not always the case in readings of these works. The quartets are all characterized by changes of emotional tone between and sometimes within movements, and the performers handle those very well without ever losing sight of the cohesiveness of the music. The emotionalism of the final quartets, although certainly not “heart on sleeve” in the still-to-come Romantic manner, is an important element of their impact; and if there is a single touchstone for the Alexander String Quartet’s performances here, it is the performers’ willingness to engage the works’ emotional centers and devise some rather leisurely interpretations in terms of pacing for the sake of plumbing the inward focus of much of the music.”
—InfoDad
See the full review on the InfoDad blog.
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