Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Grumiaux Trio, Arpad Gerecz :: Mozart: Complete String Quintets

Majuscule supremacy, unsurpassable musicality!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 08/14/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"At the very moment you listen Grumiaux's Mozart you will be conveyed to another level of musicality, plenty of pristine elegance, majestic charm and superb éclat.



Grumiaux as interpreter and performer of Mozart ` s violin concerts (at least to my mind) doesn't know rivals. Accurate tune, sublime grandness and passionate lyricism make of his Mozart a true Mount Everest of the rest of violinists of the actual and future generations.

"

The Works / Recording that Made Mozart (For Me)

Glenn Becker | Arlington, MA USA | 09/17/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Classical music lovers meet people like me from time to time. You know us: we're the "Mozart doubters," the ones who are constantly puzzled by the adulation this man's music receives ... the ones who often say things like "it's ... just ... kind of shallow," or "it's just all twinkly stuff," and "where's the beef?"



This is how I used to be.



In the past couple of months I started to make a real effort to get to know Mozart better, because I was carrying around this secret guilt that I wasn't, apparently, able to hear the profundities and beauties in Mozart that others were hearing. It wasn't that I disliked his music -- oddly enough I liked his lighter fare, the serenades and so forth, the best -- but I developed passions for the music of Bach ... Beethoven ... Haydn ... but not Mozart. Mozart just never inspired that feeling in me. "It's like listening to lace," I might say, or "it's like eating a whole box of ribbon candy -- what's the big deal?"



And in the past couple of months I had made a couple of modest successes with a couple of the later symphonies, one of the piano concertos, etc, etc, etc.



And then I found this recording. It wasn't an accident. I'd been doing research on what the essential recordings of works by Mozart might be, and I was already a big fan of chamber music in general ... so, I listened.



Just ... wow.



Now that you have recovered from the trenchant, piercing, critical searchlight of that sentence, allow me to elaborate. This music is ungodly beautiful. It has everything I had been wandering about thinking Mozart lacked: depth, aching beauty, a sense of tragedy ... everything. Plus, it is (to my untrained ear) exquisitely played.



If like me you have suffered from "Mozart Doubt," please take a bit of time to get to know these works. They just may convert you -- and there is nothing wrong with that!"

Masterworks!

Alojz Kajinic | Carnegie, PA USA | 11/02/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Mozart's String Quintets are stunningly beautiful. They are filled with such an incredible (and at times unsettling) range of different emotions, including sadness and angst. The String Quintets in C Major (K. 515) and G Minor (K. 516) are my absolute favorites. The playing on this set is elegant and smooth. Highly recommended."