Luogo e data di registrazione		Théâtre Vevey, Vevey (Svizzera) - 14 agosto / 1 settembre 1966
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Vittorio Negri
	Edizione LP		Philips | 6570 888 | 1 LP
	Prima Edizione CD		Vedi link alla prima edizione in long playing.
	Note		La collana "Musica da Camera" della Philips riedita negli anni '80 alcune registrazioni del Quartetto Italiano.

Between the end of 1782 and the beginning of 1785 Mozart wrote six string quartets which he dedicated to Joseph Haydn in a letter which has become famous. They are not only some of his most personal works, but are also amongst the most important in Classical chamber music. They were prompted by the so-called "Russian" Quartets Haydn had composed in 1781 and had said were written "in a quite special new way." This new element was the synthesis between polyphony and "thematic treatment," the principle of obbligato part writing which allows all four instruments to have an equal share in the musical discourse. It was in this set of quartets by Haydn that this principle had succeeded completely for the first time. Even if the deep impression they made on Mozart was reflected not merely in his dedication to his model, Haydn, but also in the treatment of the music, Mozart nonetheless speaks his own unmistakable language which even struck some of his contemporaries as being strange. A work such as D minor Quartet, K. 421 evokes impressions which suggest Schubert rather than Haydn. The dark melancholy mood which permeates the wohle work is brightened on a single occasion only, namely in the serenade-like trio of the otherwise gruff, polyphonically treated minuet. The difference between Mozart and Haydn is felt most clearly in the finale, Mozart writes variations with a coda on a Siciliano theme, as Haydn had done also in one of his "Russian" Quartets. The Siciliano nevertheless changes the mood to one of hopeless fatalism and resignation and does not even confer on the close any major key brightening. On the contrary, the inner state of agitation which pervades the movement seems almost to explode in the final triplets emitted by the violin. The Andante is admittedly in F major, but its hesitant, Schubertian cantabile mature is stamped by an inscrutable, resigned wistfulness, thereby serving as the means for the sublimation, that "hidden" chromaticism so characteristic of Mozart, which pervades the whole work. The extensive first movement with its broadly spaced main subject and excited development is also marked by this dark and personal mode of expression. Of a completaly different character and much more relaxed is the C major Quartet, K. 465. It is the only one of Mozart's quartets to begin with an Adagio introduction, the bold harmonic and long misunderstood false relations of which gained for the work the nickname "Dissonance." In the broadly planned Allegro of the first movement, which served as a model for Beethoven in his famous F major Quartet, Op. 59 No. 1, these complications linger merely in outline, mainly in the development which modulates the exposition energetically. The F major Andante begins with a tender cantabile melody, but the main constructional element in a short motif resembling a sigh which dominates the music completely and is given substance in the development like middle section of the movement. In spite of the modulation of the trio to C minor, the minuet has a gay, dance-like character. A carefree joy in music-making also dominates the finale, this being expressed above all in the rapid virtuoso passage of the first violin which appears twice. This does not, however, present Mozart from introducing elaborate fugato complications at the beginning of the development. Alfred Beaujean

Illustration: Bernardo Bellotto (1720-1780) "Schloßhof bei Marchegg Gartenseite" (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien)