Felix Mendelssohn:
- Complete Chamber Music for Strings, Volume 3
Felix Mendelssohn wrote his six mature string quartets at pivotal points in his life and compositional career. As a young man, his studying the music of Bach and Beethoven was certainly valuable; and later on he was inspired by violinist Ferdinand David to write his three Quartets Op. 44, represented on this CD by the final work, Op. 44 number 3 in E flat major.
On this third volume, we hear:
Mendelssohn:
- String Quartet No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 44 No. 3
- Four pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81
- Octet in E flat major, Op. 20
Performed by the Mandelring Quartett and the Quartetto di Cremona
Mendelssohn’s Octet Op. 20 became one of the composer’s best – loved pieces. The sixteen-year-old Felix wrote that:
“… pianos and fortes need to be very precise and clearly separated and more distinctly emphasized than it is normally the case with pieces of this genre.”
The Sunday Times, 27th October 2013 wrote the following fine summary:
“the Mandelring Quartet have the attributes Mendelssohn demands: great virtuosity, evenness of tone, precision, expressive intensity, and force combined with the light touch needed to capture the composer’s effortless sense of movement”
Here is the Mendelssohn Octet in E flat major, performed by the Mandelring Quartett and the Quartetto di Cremona:
And here is a video from the 2011 Salzburg Festival, where the Mandelring Quartett presented the complete string quartets by Dmitry Shostakovich:
Tags: Mandelring Quartett, Quartetto di Cremona, Mendelssohn