With this, we reach the concluding disc of the Mendelssohn cycle by the Escher Quartet. As with previous instalments (8/15 & 10/15), they combine highly disciplined playing, communicative warmth and a clear empathy for the composer in hand. They are particularly effective in the first movement of Op 44 No 3, where the unison octave writing is dispatched with great unanimity, contrasting with the grace of the opening itself. Compared to them, the Zemlinsky Quartet are perhaps a little too breathless. In the second movement, too, the Escher are steadier than some but this allows them to imbue the fugal writing with immense clarity. However, when compared with the Parker Quartet, the Escher seem distinctly less daring at the quieter end of the spectrum and it’s the former who observe to best effect the movement’s Assai leggiero vivace marking. The gloriously anguished slow movement is effectively an aria for first violin: the Escher relish this and give Mendelssohn’s delicious dissonances due immediacy before all is banished in the quicksilver finale, though again, compared to the Parker, the Escher sound just a touch deliberate, though their ensemble is faultless.

It is impossible not to be impressed by the verve and precision with which the Escher launch into the last quartet, Op 80, and their sense of living this music is infectious, the Allegro assai second movement propelled forward by the most airborne of accentuation. But this is a much-recorded work and others offer still more, whether the emotionally unfettered Ebène or the Elias, who find an unmatched level of desperation in the searing Adagio. And the Escher’s finale is, to my mind, just a little too slow to realise Mendelssohn’s febrile vision. Of the two remaining pieces from Op 81 (the first two appeared in the Escher’s second volume – 10/15), the Capriccio has a real lilt, while the Fugue possesses tremendous clarity and a sense of reactivity between the players.