Luogo e data di registrazione		West Hampstead Studios, Londra (Inghilterra) - 11 novembre 1948 (Haydn) - 11 e 20 novembre 1948 (Boccherini)
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		-
	Matrici 78rpm		Decca - AR 12935-38 (Haydn) Decca - AR 12965-68: (Boccherini)
	Prima Edizione 78rpm		Decca - AK 2159-60 - (12") - (p) 10/1949 (Haydn) Decca - AK 2173-74 - (12") - (p) 06/1949 (Boccherini)
	Prima Edizione LP		Decca - LXT 2680 - (1 LP) - (p) 06/1952 - Mono London - LL 320 - (1 LP) - (p) 04/1952 - Mono
	Prima Edizione CD		Paragon/Amadeus - AMP 007-013 - [7 CDs - (1°, 6-12)] - (p) 2009 - ADD
	Note		Philip Stuart, nel suo libro "Decca Classical, 1929-2009", riporta l'anno di pubblicazione del disco a 33 giri (LXT 2680) come il 1952. L'anno 1949, riportato anche nell'integrale Decca del 2015, fa sicuramente riferimento alla pubblicazione in disco a 78 rpm.

HAYDN: STRING QUARTET No. 6 IN E FLAT MAJOR, Op. 64, No. 6 Haydn issued in 1790 a number of quartets that brought his total in that form to nearly seventy. He produced them in half-dozens. These of Op. 64, like the six that came just before them, were dedicated to one Johann Tost, whi played in the orchestra that Haydn conducted for his master at Ersteházy Castle. First Movement: Allegretto Here is exhibited one of the habits which enlarged sonate style; instead of using two clear-cut, different ideas, the main body of the exposition is occupied with one, there being added a subsidiary thought or two. The opening harmonic subject impresses itself thus, and also by making those early full-closes in its own key. After its first statement this cadence-point is thrust home, even as Haydn seems about to develop the figure; but immediately he boldly takes up the challenging start again, in a new key, and woth a strong side-thrust of harmony. Again he seems about to develop it, but this time turns off to a lighter sensibility, in tripleting above a repeated bass note, the dominant of his new key. This kind of yhing is familiar as a "bridge", leading ordinarily to the second main subject; but here it attends development of the first one, with some new imitations and a little syncopation; and so to the resumption of the tripleting, which serves as codetta, to bring on the main body of development. This begins with more imitation, closer than before; at half a bar's distance we have "canonic" imitation. Then, for a more exciting spell, he bustles his counterpoint along with quicker notes (quavers). This is calmed down by a rippling accompaniment, whereon there lilts a fragment of the imitative tune, in various friendly keys. More than a dozen times it is used; when suddenly there breaks in the original tune-shaping, but in the remote key of G flat. It is due for a little more extension, and a striking progress to G major, befor - without any modulation from that key - the real recapitulation comes, in the original one of E flat. The last section is by no means a simple repetition of the first. Ornamental notes enliven it, some of the first part's development is cut out, and we reach in a dozen bars the spot which before we arrived at only after twenty-seven. But he must have a coda, so, having diminished his recapitulation, he develops an idea from the first subject (jumping siths), and the quaver skips, before winding up with more triplets, after the manner of the exposition. Second Movement: Andante This is one of the lucid, smooth Andantes of which he had become fond. We have just a page of floating colour, in long lines of ascent, like banners of sunset gold. The melody is at first suave, and then takes on more freely curved outlines. As its regular eught-bar sentences seem to be ending, there dovetails in one of those little stormy episodes in which Haydn wielded such swift power. He still ascends, but how differently now, in the intensity of minor-key emotion, the first violin soaring in concerto style. The accompaniment is solid, through soft. The flashes are brief; long before a score of bars have been filled the little turbulence passes, and we return to the placid, warm earth, in a slightly shortened and still freshly varied form of the first page. Third Movement: Minuetto (Allegretto) A Pleasant, plain sturdiness, informed with the usual little subtleties of build and balance. Six bars plus six make the first section of the Minuet part. Its middle section is an eicht-bar imitative development of the last phrase heard, followed by a repetition of part only of the opening; it is actually a sixteen-bar extension of that idea. Its tiny codetta is in cross-rhythm, using the dropping figure that is by now familiar. The Trio, in the same key, takes us again (as in the slow movement) to the verge of the concerto style, for in its latter portion the first violin accompanies on very high notes, some of the loftiest then employed by fiddlers. Fourth Movement: Finale (Presto) This is a rondo, with some happy chromatic scurrying in octaves, among the first theme's dance-springs. After the first section's ascents, the second's descents give diversity, as well as a bit of development of matter and extension of lenght. This second portion is not, as in a rondo, distincly different from the first. We can see the working of the same spirit that moved in the First Movement - the tendency to integrate sections by the use of similar material. This gives greater scope for development, in any kind of piece. The little dancing figure of four semiquavers (from bar 6) is much employed throughout. The effect is of development of established ideas, and there is also much of the general figuration of part one. One figure, a broken arpeggio, used by all in octaves, will be heard again later. This leads on, with a kind of little present-arms, to the repetition of part of the first theme; but as soon as we have sufficiently reminded of that, matters take a new turn, in strong imitations of a fugal order, amid plenty of athletic key swinging. A little fresh rhythm, syncopated leads on, in the same approach as before, to a third entry of the original theme; agian, it only peeps in (with a happy reference to that second theme which itself developed from the first) before the strings run together in octaves, as we noted their doing once earlier, and we are in train for the coda, which makes pretence of pulling up for some final crash - on, of all humorous basses, C flat. There is a moment of Haydn's favourite pussyfooting, with rests; a reminder of the finish of the first theme, and yet another teasing pretence, in slower notes; then we get one last wave of the hand from the original theme as it flashes past, and is gone. BOCCHERINI: STRING QUARTET IN D MAJOR, Op. 6, No. 1 Luigi Boccherini lived from 1743 to 1805 - a period closely corresponding to that of Haydn. In addition to being a fine 'cellist, he was the composer of a large number of instrumental, choral and orchestral works. Very little of his voluminous output has survived, although certain isolated movements - such as the famous "Minuet" - have won wide popularity. The first movement of the D major String Quartet starts Allegro vivace with an active, rising theme which soon gives way to a contrasted melody of a more lyrical nature. The form of the movement is extremely simple; although the first theme undergoes some charming modulations at its later reappearance, the movement falls clearly into thematic sections which may be indicated by the letters ABAB. One of the subsidiaries which follows the second subject (B) forms the basis of the delightful coda with which the movement ends. The heart of the Quartet is to be found in the very beatiful second movement, adagio. Not only the main theme, but its treatment, indicates that Boccherini was a composer of depht and sensitivity. The movement, again simple in its formal construction, is an extended meditation of a theme introduced at its start by the first violin. It is interesting, in view of the later treatment, to notice the undulating accompaniment provided by the other instruments. From the gentle, rather melancholy theme, Boccherini evolves a movement of great beauty; the accompaniment gradually rises in intensity, while the theme - still the property of the violin - weaves its phrases in and out of the texture. The outline of the first phrase is rarely absent in the series of integrated, continuous variations of which the movement is made up. The finale is formally the most interesting movement of the work. Its first theme - a gentle minuet - is treated as a rondo. The movement, though short, is remarkably concise and beautifully balanced; its form could be described as ABACBCA. A bried coda, based on the minuet theme, concludes this delightful quartet. LXT 2680 (rectus)