KV423&424是小提琴、中提琴二重奏，极其少见但有趣的组合，Mozart几乎就是把中提琴当作小提琴在低音的延伸来处理，听起来感觉宛如一把小提琴在演奏，并且能演奏出其它小提琴不能奏出的音域与和声，当小提琴独奏来听吧=。=！
以下评论摘自Brilliant的Mozart全集：
Volume 5: CD 5 Duos KV 423-424 Trio KV 266
In the dozen or so years between finishing his six String Quartets (K168 to K173),
which he wrote in Vienna in 1773, and composing the set of six string quartets
dedicated to Haydn (published by Artaria in 1785),Mozart was not idle: he visited
Munich where he was commissioned to write his opera ‘La Finta Giardiniera’, which
brought him success and accolades (‘wonderful genius’ amongst others.) He
returned to Salzburg, which, after his visits to Italy and Vienna, and particularly the
adulation he received as a child prodigy, must have seemed provincial in the extreme.
Most confining of all was the post of Concert-master for the Archbishop of Salzburg,
Hieronymus von Colloredo. Mozart’s father Leopold encouraged him to refine his
violin playing, resulting in the composition of several violin concertos around that
time. However, the recently invented ‘pianoforte’ fired Mozart’s imagination rather
more than the violin, and he wrote a number of piano concertos, as well as organ
sonatas, symphonies and masses, as well as many soprano arias, and his opera ‘Die
Entfuehrung aus dem Serail’.Mozart finally settled in Vienna in 1781, and in the
ensuing ten years, he composed his most mature works, married Constanze Weber,
his children were born and he became more involved with Freemasonry, all of which
added to his inspiration.
At the time when Mozart was busy refining the art of String Quartet writing and
creating some of the great masterpieces of the genre, he also took time to compose
two inspired works for the smaller combination of violin and viola. These are the
little known, but highly accomplished Duos in G major (KV423) and B flat major
(KV424). At the time, in 1783, Mozart was close to the composer Michael Haydn and
it has been suggested that Mozart wrote these two Duos to complete a set of six for
his friend and colleague who had fallen ill at the time. The story is distinctly
apocryphal but it is likely that Michael Haydn’s work on his own Duos may have
prompted Mozart to try his hand at the form also.
There is a clear relationship between Mozart’s two small masterworks and the sets of
Duos by both Joseph Haydn (six in all) and by Michael Haydn (the four mentioned
above), all written in the 1770’s. All are written in three movement form with a
central slow movement and conclude with a Rondo or a Minuet. But in the case of
the Duos by the two Haydns, there is little of character other than a solo violin part
with a viola accompaniment, quite different from Mozart’s truly integrated duet
form. Mozart’s two pieces were composed in Salzburg and represent an amazing
development from the earlier works.
Mozart avoids the problems of a lack of bass line in his works by allowing his two
soloists to have equal weight in a texture which sounds distinctly fuller than two solo
stringed instruments would normally be expected to achieve. Both of the Duos are in
the conventional ternary form with slow movements that are truly deep in feeling. Just
as Haydn had done before him, Mozart concludes the B flat Duo with a set of variations
and also like Haydn,Mozart keeps those intense middle movements short. These are
works of a master musician, too often ignored simply because of the apparent simplicity
of their form but forever revealing new depths of charm and lyricism.
The present disc is completed by an incomplete two movement Sonata in B flat
written in Salzburg during the spring of 1777 just before Mozart’s final Grand Tour
of Europe. It is, despite its early date, a charming piece with a noteworthy second
movement Minuet.
Dr. David Doughty