"You know I become quite powerless whenever I am obliged to write for an instrument I cannot bear," the 22-year-old Mozart complained to his father, whilst working at various commissions for the Dutch amateur flautist, Ferdinand Dejean.
The young and distracted composer's professed aversion to the flute was only part of the problem, as Neal Zaslaw points out in his intriguing programme notes for a new recording of Mozart's flute quartets by Lisa Friend and the Brodsky Quartet.
But the two quartets Dejean received at the time show no indication of flute-phobia; the first, in D major, is one of the sunniest and most lyrical scores to spill from Mozart's pen. These qualities are caught to perfection on this disc and producer Rachel Smith has microphones bring out the subtle weave of the piece, especially when strings share around their material.
Listening to this work's divinely beautiful Adagio, one wonders whether Mozart was aware of the Largo from the Winter instalment of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Perhaps it's better not to dwell on such thoughts, lest one starts imagining how it might have sounded with a period wooden instrument rather than the modern metal variety.
Two sets of variations in a pair of later quartets show the ensemble at its most integrated particularly in the second, where Mozart gives the string players a chance to soar from the texture. And was the young Wolfgang ever more light-hearted than in the spirited country dance of K298's Minuet?
