String Quartets I

This volume brings together Mozart’s youthful attempts at this later so central genre of the string quartet: the astonishing “Lodi Quartet” K. 80 by the only fourteen-year-old composer, the three “Quartet-Divertimenti” K. 136–138 which are also readily played by chamber orchestras, and Mozart’s first true string-quartet cycle K. 155–160 which was composed during his third (north-)Italian journey in 1772/73.

Mozart’s cleanly written scores of all the compositions have been preserved so that the edition stands on a secure foundation. In his informative preface, Wolf-Dieter Seiffert, the experienced Mozart editor at G. Henle Publishers, devotes a separate, comprehensive explanatory section to the well-known articulation problem “dot or wedge”. The Armida Quartet provided artistic input for this edition.