Mozart String Duos - Catherine Cosbey and Dorian Komanoff Bandy
Mozart String Duos
Catherine Cosbey and Dorian Komanoff Bandy
Leaf Music LM297 (leaf-music.ca/music/lm297)
Listen
Duo in G Major for Violin and Viola, K. 423: I. Allegro
Duo in G Major for Violin and Viola, K. 423: II. Adagio
Duo in B-Flat Major for Violin and Viola, K. 424: I. Adagio – Allegro
Read the Review
There’s some fascinating content on Mozart String Duos, violinist Catherine Cosbey and violinist/violist Dorian Komanoff Bandy presenting period-instrument performances of the two Duos for Violin and Viola in G Major, K423 and in B-flat Major, K424, alongside newly discovered historical arrangements of a Mozart violin sonata and several arias from a late opera (Leaf Music LM297 leaf-music.ca/music/lm297).
Cosbey and Bandy apparently insert “extensive embellishments and cadenzas” into their performances, although they are not particularly noticeable. The two Duos receive idiomatic readings, but while there are numerous alternative recordings available you won’t have heard any of the fascinating violin duets here before.
The Violin Sonata in A Major K305 was transcribed for two violins by an anonymous Parisian arranger in 1799 and it’s really effective, drawing some of the best playing on the CD from the duo. Mozart’s opera La Clemenza di Tito was premiered in September 1791, just three months before the composer’s death; five arias were arranged for two violins by Johann Christian Stumpf, a German composer active in Parisian publishing in the 1780s who died in 1801.
The duets were discovered in rare book libraries in Texas and Germany, and have in all probability not been heard since the early 1800s. Who knows what other gems we’ve been missing?