Orchestral Quartet in Bb

Carl Stamitz (1745-1801) is unquestionably the best-known of the second generation of composers associated with the Mannheim court although for most of his career he was based elsewhere. He received his earliest musical training from his brilliant and famous father, Johann, Director of Instrumental Music and leader of the Mannheim court orchestra, and after his early death, with a number of the leading court musicians. Stamitz left Mannheim in 1770 and worked for some years in Paris before devoting the remainder of his life to composition and touring as a virtuoso violist. Stamitz composed nearly as much chamber music as he did the works for orchestra upon which his reputation today largely rests. The Six Quartets Op.1 were published in Paris by the Bureau d’Abonnement in 1770. Although the quartets have something of the intimate quality of chamber music, much of the string writing is characteristic of the style cultivated by the composers at the Mannheim court including the use of dramatic dynamic shifts and urgent crescendos. The qualities that make Stamitz’s symphonies and concertos so popular are also well in evidence in these charming works. They abound in brisk energetic, driving themes, sparkling string writing, and, in their slow movements, they possess the easy grace and elegance that that is the hallmark of so much of his work.