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Leaf Music4
Mozart String Duos
Catherine Cosbey, violin; Dorian Komanoff Bandy, violin and viola
Leaf Music, 2025
We don’t often have the chance to hear Mozart in his most intimate arrangements, especially for two instruments. Catherine Cosbey and Dorian Komanoff Bandy have, however, given us this opportunity with their new recording on Leaf Music.
In Mozart’s time, players were in the habit of adding their own ornaments, especially in cadenzas and da capo sections. It’s an art that Cosbey, on violin, and Komanoff Bandy, on violin and viola, have exploited to the fullest extent on this album.
There’s a lovely cohesion between violinist and viola player; they’ve taken care to create a beautiful sound and a sense of dialogue between the two instruments. However, in the first movement of the K. 423 duo, the freedoms taken with the score far exceed its ornamentation. It’s played at more of an andante speed than of an allegro. What’s more, the tendency to slow down at the end of each musical phrase gives the performance a romantic flavour. The intent might be emotional but, in fact, the piece should flow naturally with just a hint of virtuosity. That said, the slow movements lend themselves more to this style of playing, and in the K. 424 duo, the violin’s low register melds with the tone of the viola to create a beautiful, suspended sound.
The arrangements that complete these Mozart duos also mirror a common practice in the 18th and 19th centuries: extracts from large-scale works such as the opera La clemenza di Tito, played in a chamber-music context. Cosbey and Komanoff Bandy capture the vocality intrinsic to these works, as well as the variety of their characters—sometimes expressive, at other times dynamic— as conveyed in the recitatives adapted for two violins. A vibrant tribute to the composer’s vivid art!
Translation: Cecilia Grayson
