Alpha and the brilliant young Van Kuijk Quartet again steal a march on their CD competitors by offering three Mendelssohn quartets rather than the usual two, with a playing time to match. You lose the exposition repeat of the E flat, Op 44 No 3, but for most listeners I suspect that’s a small price to pay. The performances themselves richly fulfil the expectations aroused by Vol 1 (A/22): lean-toned, fiery, ever responsive to Mendelssohn’s distinctive brand of restlessness and agitation, yet never short-changing the pools of mystery and tenderness in, say, the outer movements of Op 44 No 3. Roundly written off in the poorly translated booklet note, the scurrying moto perpetuo finale emerges here as an airborne scherzo, with fitful glimpses of Mendelssohn’s as yet unwritten Violin Concerto. Textures remain feathery, luminous. While other quartets, including the Leipzig (MDG) and the Doric (Chandos, 10/18), generate more sheer physical excitement in this finale, the Van Kuijk’s more relaxed, playful performance is just as persuasive.

Op 44 No 3 has never been among the more favoured Mendelssohn quartets. But the Van Kuijk are superb advocates, whether in the first movement’s mingled lyrical sweep and tense motivic development, the gossamer Scherzo (where they take to heart Mendelssohn’s assai leggiero marking) or their balance of delicacy and fervour in the Adagio non troppo, at a tempo midway between the flowing Leipzigers and the innig, Schumannesque Doric. The E minor, Op 44 No 2, is specially memorable for the ardent, broad-spanned phrasing of the outer movements and the pure lines of the song-without-words Andante (Mendelssohn’s admonitory nicht schleppend – not to be dragged – duly heeded) touching, yet with that crucial Mendelssohnian quality of innocence (not for nothing did Berlioz once describe him, affectionately, as ‘a virginal character’).

Both the Leipzig and, especially, the Doric are freer with rubato than the Van Kuijk, who in the Op 44 quartets seem to view Mendelssohn more as the heir of Mozart than a contemporary of Schumann and Chopin. They are more inclined to flex the pulse in the shockingly bitter, abrasive world of Op 80, written in the wake of Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny’s death (and quaintly dubbed by the translator the ‘Maiden and the Death’ Quartet). Without quite risking the Leipzigers’ no-holds-barred Allegro molto in the finale, the Van Kuijk are barely less vivid, here and in the cri de coeur of the first movement. Abetted by fairly close miking, they ensure maximum clarity in the fevered quasi-orchestral textures, even when the finale threatens to curdle into a nightmarish folkfest. Phrased in long, surging paragraphs, both outer movements give an unnerving sense of Mendelssohn striving against intolerable odds to maintain his innate poise.

At the Van Kuijk’s burdened tempo the Adagio rather loses the grave march tread caught so well by the Doric and, even more, the Takács (Hyperion, 11/21). I initially scribbled ‘too slow – four, not two, beats in a bar!’ But the Van Kuijk gradually won me over with their intensity of line and imaginative variety of colour, including a fragile, secretive pianissimo. Their expressive touches of portamento here made me regret that that they virtually eschew slides elsewhere. It hardly needs stressing that the technical finish of the playing throughout is second to none, culminating in leader Nicolas Van Kuijk’s wild night ride and fearless ascent into the stratosphere at the end of Op 80: a searing conclusion to a modern Mendelssohn quartet cycle fit to rank alongside those from the Leipzig and Doric.