The Art of Arrangement: Mozart & Beethoven Quartets for Piano & Strings Leonardo Miucci & Alea Ensemble

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791): Quintet in E-Flat Major, K. 452 (Arr. for Piano & Strings):
• 1 Mozart: Quintet in E-Flat Major, K. 452 (Arr. for Piano & Strings): Ia. Largo 02:35
• 2 Mozart: Quintet in E-Flat Major, K. 452 (Arr. for Piano & Strings): Ib. Allegro moderato 08:46
• 3 Mozart: Quintet in E-Flat Major, K. 452 (Arr. for Piano & Strings): II. Larghetto 09:01
• 4 Mozart: Quintet in E-Flat Major, K. 452 (Arr. for Piano & Strings): III. Allegretto 06:08
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827): Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 16 (Version for Piano & Strings):
• 5 Beethoven: Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 16 (Version for Piano & Strings): Ia. Grave 02:59
• 6 Beethoven: Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 16 (Version for Piano & Strings): Ib. Allegro, ma non troppo 12:30
• 7 Beethoven: Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 16 (Version for Piano & Strings): II. Andante cantabile 07:34
• 8 Beethoven: Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 16 (Version for Piano & Strings): III. Rondò. Allegro, ma non troppo 07:14
• Total Runtime 56:47

Info for The Art of Arrangement: Mozart & Beethoven Quartets for Piano & Strings

Both of these quartets are transcriptions of quintets for winds and piano by their respective composers but the links that bind them go much deeper. In the year after Mozart’s death, Beethoven began the draft of a work for the unusual instrumental ensemble of four wind instruments and piano. He was inspired by the similar work by Mozart, which had largely emancipated winds from their role in Harmoniemusik, employing them instead in the sophisticated ambience of chamber music. In this performance, following Beethoven’s own practice, the cadenzas in his quartet are improvised. ‘After The Young Beethoven, this second recording project completes the quartets for strings and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven. As in the previous programme, the link between the worlds of Mozart and Beethoven is clear and, in some aspects even more pronounced. In this case, the Quartet for Strings and Piano KV 452 represented an important reference point for the creation of the Quartet Op. 16, and it was such an important source of inspiration that we decided to put them together and highlight their evident and numerous elements of continuity, despite some relevant differences.’ (Leonardo Miucci)

Alea Ensemble
Leonardo Miucci, piano

Leonardo Miucci
Born in Milan in 1982, Leonardo Miucci graduated in piano from Matera Conservatory in 2001, where he was a pupil of Costantino Mastroprimiano, and went on to study chamber music at Perugia Conservatory, gaining a diploma in 2003 and a master's degree in 2006. In 2005 he began his studies in fortepiano, first with Robert Levin at the Salzburg Mozarteum, then with Bart van Oort at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, obtaining a bachelor's degree in 2009 and master's in 2011. Meanwhile, he also graduated in musicology at Tor Vergata University in Rome in 2005, specializing in 18th- and 19th-century instrumental performance practice. Since 2010 he has been a researcher at the Bern Hochschule der Künste, and in 2012 embarked on a PhD at Bern University on the subject of philological and performance practice aspects of Beethoven's piano sonatas. He has recently published a critical edition of Francesco Pollini’s fortepiano treatise of 1812, and is currently engaged in recording a cycle of Hummel's piano quartet arrangements of Mozart's piano concertos, in which he plays an original fortepiano.

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