La Speranza will be recording our first album at the end of 2024 with PARMA Recordings! Mozart’s Contemporaries will feature string quartets by Hyacinthe Jadin, Paul Wranitzky, and Joseph Leopold Eybler and will be released in 2025.
Jadin: String Quartet in F major, Op. 4 no. 2
French composer Hyacinthe Jadin (1776-1800) became a published composer at the age of 9. His four brothers, father and uncle were also musicians. Though his life was cut short due to tuberculosis, Hyacinthe composed a plethora of chamber music, orchestral works, and piano music. His music anticipates the Romantic era with its lyricism and intricate harmonies.
His String Quartet in F Major, Op. 4 no. 2, was written in 1798 and can be described as joyful, chromatic, and imaginative.
Eybler: String Quartet in E flat major Op. 10, no. 1, HV 193
Joseph Leopold Eybler (1765-1846) was greatly respected by his composition teacher Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, who considered him to be the greatest musical genius in Vienna apart from Mozart. He was also highly praised by Haydn as well as Mozart himself, who considered him to be a very close friend. Eybler helped care for Mozart at the end of his life and was asked by Constanze Mozart to finish her husband’s requiem. He became overwhelmed by the task, and out of respect for his dear late friend, he declined.
His String Quartet op. 10 no 1, HV 193 was finished in 1809 and first published in 1811. It can be described as exuberant, heroic, and operatic.
Wranitzky: String Quartet in e minor, Op. 23 no 2
The string quartets written by Czech composer Paul Wranitzky (born Pavel Vranický, 1756-1808) are thought by many music historians to rival those of Mozart.
Music historian Ron Drummond says it best: “But based on Pavel’s ten (out of 73), I can safely and with absolute confidence say that Vranický’s achievement as a composer of string quartets is a greater achievement, overall, than Mozart’s. Lest that statement be misunderstood, let me clarify: it’s simply that Vranický’s output dwarfs Mozart’s, and the quality of each man’s (mature) productions is so superb that Vranický wins by sheer numbers – really, that’s at least part of the reason why Haydn’s achievement in the medium is also greater than Mozart’s. (Granted, it’s a double-edged sword: one ranks incessantly; but one also finds that great works enrich the entire field. Vranický’s quartets enrich Mozart’s for me, not because they are so bad but because they are so good. And vice versa.)” (Excerpt from Czech Classicism – The Sweat of the Brow)
Wranitzky’s String Quartet in e minor, Op. 23 no. 2 was published in 1793 and written for Friedrich II, the King of Prussia who was an excellent cellist and a prominent patron of the arts. The quartet can be described as groundbreaking, daring, and virtuosic.
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