String Quartets Kv 499 and 589

Contains String Quartet No. 20 in D major, K499 'Hoffmeister' and String Quartet No. 22 in B flat major, K589 'Prussian No. 2'

These recordings of Mozart’s String Quartets (some of his final ones) KV 499 and KV 589, made in 1961 at the Sofiensaal in Vienna, have historic significance, as the last gasp of a Viennese style of string playing in Mozart which stemmed from before World War II. Otto Strasser (1901–96), Willi Boskovsky (1909–91), his exact contemporary Emanuel Brabec (1909–98) and Rudolf Streng (1915–88) had all studied with luminaries of the orchestra from the era when Arnold Rosé, Franz Mairecker and Julius Stwertka led the violins, Ernst Moravec the violas and Friedrich Buxbaum the cellos. Strasser studied with Stwertka, Streng with both Moravec and Barylli’s teacher Mairecker, Brabec with Buxbaum. Strasser joined the Philharmonic in 1922, Boskovsky in 1932 and Brabec in 1938. All four played in the old relaxed way in which the tone was carried as if on the breath, with easeful portamento and legato, like the singing of a bel canto specialist. To hear Brabec’s airborne legato in the Larghetto of KV 589 is to experience a style which can no longer be duplicated. This issue is part of a survey of the Vienna Philharmonic Quartet’s discography for Decca, now reissued on Eloquence. Both quartets are released internationally on CD for the first time.