Superb Playing

BILL NEWMAN listens to a selection
of instrumental chamber music in London

Keller Quartet
Mozart and Brahms
Wigmore Hall, 15 April 2012

The interest created by these two works concerns their key signatures -- the first in C major-minor by Mozart, one of six he dedicated to his mentor Joseph Haydn. This is the remarkable 'Dissonance', with its rising 'stepping stones' opening -- unique for its period, the composer tempting his admirers and raising a few eyebrows when first performed. It forms a questioning motif that deliberately stretches the final note and demands an immediate repeat of the same phrase, slightly higher in the register to provide the perfect lead in to the following Allegro section. One of the composer's happiest and boisterous, the instrumentalists provided a consistent flow of melodic ideas in songlike imitation of each other...