The Whole Music Experience

Jerusalem Quartet Mozart String Quartets K. 157, 458 & 589 Harmonia Mundi Who doesn’t love a composer who can turn 4 stringed instruments into an orchestra? The virtuoso composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart even on one his earliest quartets, K. 157 performed so lovingly by the Jerusalem Quartet, composed this full-bodied work. Although this early quartet is described as sad in the liner notes, the first and third movements sound lively to me. The slower second movement Andante , portrays aching sadness, and definitely sobs of grief. Just listen to the lamenting cello below the surface of the weeping violins and viola. And yet, this movement in all of its woeful melancholy recalls later work by French composer Erik Satie. In fact, I listened to this movement before watching a movie with Satie’s music in the soundtrack, which caused me to draw comparisons. String Quartet No. 17 in B flat, K. 458 composed much later in Mozart’s short life, recalls the work of JS Bach. If th...