MENDELSSOHN String Quintets
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Felix Mendelssohn
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Audite
Magazine Review Date: 09/2014
Media Format: Super Audio CD
Media Runtime: 69
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: AUDITE92 659
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
String Quintet No. 1 |
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer Gunter Teuffel, Viola Mandelring Quartet |
String Quintet No. 2 |
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer Gunter Teuffel, Viola Mandelring Quartet |
(4) Pieces for String Quartet, Movement: Capriccio in E minor |
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer Mandelring Quartet |
(4) Pieces for String Quartet, Movement: Fugue in A flat |
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer Mandelring Quartet |
Author: Caroline Gill
It doesn’t disappoint, with the contrast in outlook and maturity between the early works and their more adult examples as happily apparent as ever in the difference in character and youthful buoyancy they bring out in each. The phrasing, particularly in the slow movements, may be sinuous and sustained but the articulation remains adequately spartan to allow the music to shine through as the art it was, rather than the purely cerebral achievements of a prodigy testing out his new-found skills. It drives Mendelssohn’s enthralling musical ideas with the kind of conviction that makes it difficult to turn off this disc without listening from beginning to end. It is recorded with their customary clarity, too, which adds an extra dimension to their performance, particularly in the last two movements of the Four Pieces: in the more muscular passages of the Fugue, where Mendelssohn uses its subject in repeatedly different and increasingly outlandish scenarios, and in the spontaneity of the two contrasting sections of the Capriccio.
Everything the Mandelrings have to throw at these pieces shows them to their best advantage – fleet-footed bowing, tongue-in-groove intonation and ensemble, and a sense of momentum that always drives the music in the right direction. The definitive set is complete.
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