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- guardian.co.uk, Friday July 26 2002 14.40 BST
- The Guardian, Friday July 26 2002
Mendelssohn's two string quintets are early and late works; the first, in A major, was composed in 1826 when he was 17, the second, in B flat, nearly 20 years later. They have never achieved the popularity of his youthful Octet, or even of the first two string quartets, but they are both striking, distinctive and sharply contrasted in mood.
No 1 is lyrical, its debt to Beethoven more obvious, with a fairy scherzo and lashings of contrapuntal writing in the finale; No 2 is more starkly dramatic from the opening bars, driven by an emotional intensity that is the exception rather than the rule in late Mendelssohn.
These accounts by the US-based Mendelssohn Quartet sometimes seem a bit too tempestuous, but there is no doubting the sureness of their ensemble and the sweetness of their phrasing.
