Fantasia à 4 [no. 4] in G minor, Z.735:

We have played and loved these works since the founding of the group in 1985; in fact, so much so, that we have recorded them twice. Our second recording won a Gramophone prize. This, however, is from a live performance in San Antonio on 18th January, 2009:

About the fantasia:

He started on 10th June with this first of the four-part fantazies, marking out his territory with extravagant and exaggerated technical ability: combining his first theme with itself in inverted, augmented & double augmented forms, yet hiding this feat with smooth and mellifluous melody.

Having thus set out his contrapuntal skills in high fashion, he then shows his extraordinary harmonic ability, moving around almost all the keys with bewildering facility before arriving back where he started.

He finishes with two new movements marked ‘Brisk’, the first smooth and the second scampering towards a climactic end, finishing in characteristic fashion on a chord with no third.