For those who know the quartet through its recordings — more than 20 years’ worth, spanning Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven, and stretching forward to Schubert and Mendelssohn — this first Bay Area visit by the Quatuor Mosaïques needs no recommending. But those who haven’t heard the ensemble yet are in for an uncommon pleasure.
I could wish that the players (who met as members of Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s Concentus Musicus Wien) were bringing some of their more far-flung recent repertoire; lately they’ve been playing music as late as Bartók and Webern. But the Schubert (including “Death and the Maiden”) and Mozart on their Cal Performances debut recital are enticement enough. If you love thoughtful, minutely detailed, joyous quartet playing, this is the one recital this spring you can least afford to miss