This CD combines two famous masterpieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in startling and clever arrangements for string quartet and string sextet, both dating from the early 19th century.

The Requiem in D minor, K626, was conceived by Mozart for four vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra. He began composing it in 1791. When he died in December of that year, the Requiem remained unfinished. It was completed and edited by Franz Xaver Süssmayr.


The choice of a string sextet is extraordinary, as this type of string ensemble had only recently for the very first time been used by Luigi Boccherini, who had published his six sextets op.23 in Paris in 1776. No other significant string sextets were known at the time of this arrangement, and it is not sure that the anonymous arranger had seen or heard the Boccherini pieces.

For the present performances by Rusquartet both arrangements have been revised and occasionally rearranged by the musicians and me, whenever we felt that this would improve the arrangement. Discrepancies between the arrangements and the Neue Mozart Ausgabe scores were as a rule solved by changing the text according to the NMA. For the Sinfonia Concertante the excellent edition of Gunther Schuller (Margun Music) was used.