Luogo e data di registrazione		La-Chaux-de-Fonds (Svizzera): - 11-14 novembre 1970 (KV 80, 155, 156, 157) La-Tour-de-Peilz (Svizzera): - 20-30 luglio 1971 (KV 499, 575) - 31 agosto / 2 settembre 1971 (KV 158-160, 168) - 14-17 gennaio 1972 (KV 589, 590) - 23 luglio / 3 agosto 1972 (KV 169-172) - 7 luglio & 3 agosto 1972 (KV 173, 136-138, 546) Théâtre Vevey, Vevey (Svizzera): - 14 agosto / 1 settembre 1966 (KV 387, 421, 428, 458, 464, 465)
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Vittorio Negri | Joost Hemmeling (KV 169-172)
	Prima Edizione LP		Philips | 6747 097 | 9 LPs | (Complete Works for String Quartets)
	Prima Edizione CD		Philips | 416 419-2 | 8 CDs) | (c) 1990 | ADD Philips Duo | 456 058-2 | 2 CDs (2°, 9-10) | (c) 1997 | ADD | (KV 546) Decca | 478 8824 | 37 CDs (15°, 1-9) | (c) 2015 | ADD | (KV 136-138) Philips | 422 832-2 | 1 CD | (c) 1989 | ADD | (KV 428, 458) Philips | 426 099-2 | 1 CD | (c) 1990 | ADD | (KV 464, 465)
	Note		Ripubblicazioni in cofanetto dell'opera per quartetto d'archi di Mozart.

MOZART AND THE STRING QUARTET The string quartet, as we know it, seems to have sprung miraculously to life in the middle of the eighteenth century. There are remarkably few precedents for it - some seventeenth-century viol consort, perhaps, by men like Matthew Locke and Henry Purcell, a few concerti a quattro from the early eighteenth century itself, although these are rather out of the running because of their having figured basses. The real string quartet eschews any hint of a figured bass. True, there are some early editions of the Haydn quartets which have then but these are present more because of the business acumen of the publisher than the deliberate intention of the composer. In those early examples, a string quartet could still be played, in the absence of a viola, by having a continuo player fill in the missing harmonies. But as viola players grew more competent and the sheer satisfaction of playing string quartets as such grew more apparent, so the figured basses disappoeared and string-quartet groups multipled, so that whereas there were very few indeed before 1750 by the 1770's their number had become legion, and sets of string-quartet music flowed from the printing presses. One of the chief causes of this interest was no boubt the work of the great Joseph Haydn himself whose early works in the form swiftly caught the fancy of amateurs all over the Western world. He was not alone, of course, in composing string quartets; many of his contemporaries, such as Boccherini, Nardini, Giardini, the Mannheimers, J.C. Bach and his friend Abel, and a good many others turned their attention to string quartet writing. But none of their works, with the possible excesption of Boccherini's, has proved as long-lasting as those of Haydn himself. The one other great exception, of course, in Mozart. Like Haydn, Mozart wrote string quartets throughout his career - not in any orderly or pre-determinated fashion if a true, but there are string quartets from as early as K. 80 in Köchel's famous catalogue, and as late as K. 590 - that is to say from c. 1770. Hes first known string quartet was composed at Lodi in Italy in March 1770. Italian in origin, it is equally Italian in style opening with a longish Adagio, followed by a brief Allegro, and terminating with a minuet and trio, rather like the similar quartets by Italian masters such as Nardini. By 1770, the string quartet was already fully-fledged as a form; it only needed composers of genius to strenghthen and amplify it. Those composers were at hand, and by the end of the eighteenth century the string quartet had reached full maturity in the hands of such genuses as Haydn and Mozart. Mozart's next effeorts is the sphere of writing for four stringed instruments are sometimes counted as pure string quartets, and sometimes as music for full string band. These are the three delightful "Divertimenti" (K. 136-138) composed in Salzburg in 1772. We hear these mostly nowadays as orchestral pieces and certainly they come off extraordinarily well in that guise, but they can also be played as string quartets and work just as well that way, too although purists will probably always claim them as orchestral music. They are perhaps of that kind of music which the Mannheimers tended to call "orchestra quartets," meant for either medium. It was, after all, at this very time that one German theorist, stated quite categorically that "you cannot have an orchestra of less than four players," a remark which wasn't nearly as obvious to them as it seems to us. Later in 1772, Mozart was again in Italy and there he composed a firther half-dozen quartets (K. 155-160)- These are also somewhat Italianate and light-hearted in their outer movements, yet at times brightly contrapuntal. Formally they vary between the Italian "notturno" type of quartet, opening with a slow movement, and the "sinfonia" type with a busting opening allegro in more or less sonata form. Not unexpectedly, they show the young composer's growing mastery of string-quartet texture, the inner parts gradually becoming more independent, along with less subservience to the first violin part, which becomes less of a solo and plays more a "fist among its peers" kind of role. Mozart seems to have had sudden outbursts of creative activity where string-quartet composition was concerned. In the midst of fulfilling commissions for sonatas and symphonies and concertos and operas, to say nothing of practising and performing as a gifted virtuoso on both keyboard and violin, it is surely not surprising that he only rarely managed to sit down and compose a set of string quartets. It seems that when he did, it was mainly for pleasure, for most of his quartets remained unpublished for years; they were obviously not composed at the behest of some publisher. Even the famous six quartets "dedicated to Haydn" seem to have been written more for love than as the result of an actual commission, although they were published fairly soon after they were written. So we can take it that most of Mozart's string quartets were labours of love, rather than of mere business deals. But we anticipate; we must return to the 1770's. In the late summer of 1773, Mozart composed another half-dozen quartets (K. 168-173) during a period of residence in Vienna, which was already a considerable centre of string-quartet composition and performance. Vienna, too, was the home of the four-movement type of quartet, including minuet and trio, and so these forst Viennese quartets of Mozart follow this four-movement form. Again, Mozart's technical accomplishment is growing very fast here and it is noteceable that, Haydn-fashion, he is paying much more attention to the development sections of these works than he did in his more Italianate early quartets, although of course melody still means more to him than anything else, as indeed it did most of his life. That is, in fact, the great difference between the two famous Viennese masters; Haydn, a less easy melodist than Mozart, emphasised his own gift of thematic development, whereas Mozart always tended to exploit his won superb gift as a natural melodist. (One remembers the advice he gave to Michael Kelly, not to worry so much about "science" but to concentrate on his gifts as a tune-writer.) After the busy autumn of 1773, it was a good many years before Mozart devoted any amount of time to quartet writing again. It was the winter of 1782-83 which saw him setting earnestly to work to compose the first three quartets of the six "dedicated to Haydn." The intervening decade had seen him develop enormously as a composer; Haydn himself told Leopold Mozart that his son Wolfgang was "the greatest living composer" and there is no doubt that at that time, Haydn himself excepted, this was true; Beethoven was still a mere lad in the 1780's. In the following winter (1784-85) Mozart managed to complete the other three quartets of the series, and the set was published in the autumn of 1785. In the dedication to Haydn the young composer said that these six quartets were the fuit of long and serious application on his part. Gone, obviously, were the days when one could rattle off half a dozen quartets in a matter of days; gone were the easy-going times of divertimento and notturno; string-quartet writing was now a really serious business in  which the composer was expected to enshrine his loftiest and most serious thoughts. So serious were those thoughts, indeed, that in the case of the sixth quartet of the series (K. 465), the opening Adagio so offended against eighteenth-century ideas of harmonic propriety that it has ever since been known as the "Dissonance" Quartet and one indignant amateur is said to have torn out the offending passage and stamped on it. It is noteworthy that Mozart had this particular quartet printed last in the series; it would never have done to print it at the head of the collection! But Mozart's occasional exploitation of such discord did not mean that his usual gracious melody was to be excluded - far from it. Mozart's melodic gift seems to bloom even more splendidly when expressive of his deepest thoughts. And in these quartets the thought is expressed in string writing of such exquisite texture that it has rarely been equalled, much less surpassed. These six quartets stand very high indeed in the total sum of Mozart's most enchanting works. Never again did he attain quite such perfection of form and content through the medium of the string quartet, although there are some exquisite passages in the solitary quartet in D, K. 499, composed in 1786, which also has one of his liveliest rondo-finales. Two years later he composed, or rather adapted, on of his noblest works for string quartet, the Adagio and Fugue in C minor,K. 546, which was based on a similar fugue for two keyboards, although the opening Adagio seems to have been conceived for the string-quartet medium. The whole work seems to have been a tribute to the late Baroque style, in which Mozart had become greatly interested. K. 546 also shows Mozart's supreme mastery of counterpoint; he could manipulate the "learned" style as well as the more easy-going style galant of his own time. Mozart's last three quartets were the result of a commission from the cello-playing King Frederick Willem II of Prussia, who had already commissioned similar works from Haydn and Boccherini. Special attention had to be given to the royal cellist, who expected to have a particularly rewarding part to play for his 100 pieces of gold. Mozart complied with the royal request but it seems to have had a somewhat cramping effect on him, and on the whole these last three quartets do not seem to have the same spontaneity as his previous works in the medium. It must be remembered too that, at the time of their composition, Mozart was undergoing a particularly trying and distressing time, with financial and other worries mounting all round him, and while he often seemed to triumph all the more in such difficulties if the task itself was congenial - such as the composition of an opera - this particular connession does not seems to have inspred him to quite the same degree. Nevertheless the last three quartets are still worthy of our close attention, for what may be slightly less than the best from Mozart is still often a great deal better than the prime efforts of a lesser composer. Charles Cudworth QUARTETTO ITALIANO The Quartetto Italiano is deservedly one of the most renowned quartets of our time. It was as long ago as 1945, soon after completing their studies, that Paolo Borciani, Elisa Pegreffi, Piero Farulli, and Franco Rossi, resisting the tempting promise of individual careers as soloists, decided to pool their youthful enthusiasm and musical talent and devote themselves to the difficult but satisfying art of playing chamber music really well. By 1947 the group had established a firm reputation in the musical press and begun giving concerts outside Italy. In 1951 they visited the United States for the first time, and it was soon apparent that their devotion to their music and the impeccable standards of performance they had set for themselves were earning them fame as well as satisfaction. Over the years since 1945 they have remained together, a rare example of teamwork in music. To list the group`s wide-ranging activities in more than 25 years is pointless: they have done everything one might expect of one of the world’s finest quartets. They have given hundreds of concerts all over Europe and in the United States; they are regular participants in the chamber-music concours of many countries; and they have played and are in constant demand at the world`s great music festivals. Outside the concert circuit the members of the quartet teach chamber music at both the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm and the Conservatoire in Vienna. In addition to the many words of praise bestowed on them - after their first concert in New York, Virgil Thomson, the distinguished critic of the "New York Herald Tribune," called them “the finest quartet, unquestionably, that our century has known” - they have been publicly honoured by the President of Italy as a more tangible recognition of their outstanding artistic services over the years to Italy in particular and the world of music in general.