Tring Chamber Music- Mozart and Beethoven - Poles Apart

The opening ‘dissonance’ of the final quartet which Mozart dedicated to Haydn was so misunderstood by his contemporaries that it was often performed in a ‘corrected’ form; It betrays an unease, a dramatic contrast to the ensuing radiant sunlight and good humour of mature Mozart. High spirits also abound in Lutoslawski’s ‘Bucolics’ for viola and cello - five short sketches based on Polish folk melodies. Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka are his first works for string quartet, his own arrangements of scenes from his operas, displaying the warmth, pain and suffering mixed with sardonic wit that we associate with this composer. In his middle string quartets Beethoven reaches hitherto unreachable heights; the first ‘Razumovsky’ quartet is no exception.