String quartets op. 76

Abstract

When Mozart wrote an aria, he tailor-made it to exploit the strengths and circumvent the weaknesses of the singer for whom it was de-fined. He usually refused to compose an aria until he was familiar with the singer who was to perform it, and when there was a change in Ihe cast of an opera, he sometimes inserted or substituted new arias. In this he was a man of his t imes, a craftsman who sought to please the lingers, the audience and himself with well-w i ought creations that would make their in¬tended effect. Mozart's concern - one might t*ven call it an obsession - for providing the right music for each circumstance in which he 'wind himself is well documented in his let¬ters. When he composed symphonies, their style was likewise influenced to some degree by I he strengths and weaknesses of a particular ensemble and the tastes of a certain audience. It is for that reason that this series of recordings. For the first time recreated the types of ensemble for which Mozart composed his sym¬phonies, enabling us to hear differences between these orchestras that Mozart and his contemporaries thought significant, and to learn what influence those differences may have had Upon the style of the music. The ensembles range from the tiny orchestras that Mozart hoard at private concerts and small courts to the large opera orchestras that performed his symphonies in Italy, from the small but ac-complished Prague orchestra that was so de-voted to Mozart and his music to the fifty-seven-member orchestra of the Concert spirituel, from string sections whose balance was similar to that of a modern chamber or¬chestra to string sections in which the double basses ereatly outnumbered the cellos and where there were hardly any violas. Each of these characteristic sounds may be heard among the more-than-sixty symphonies in this collection.