Felix & Fanny Mendelssohn: String Quartets

The Minguet Quartet concludes its four-volume set here, which now includes all of Mendelssohn’s string quartets – not only the seven works by the fortunate Felix, who had a musical career open to him from childhood, but also the only quartet by his older sister Fanny, for whom music was only ever allowed ‘to be an adornment, never the foundation of life,’ as their father Abraham decreed with the declamation of a patriarch. And once again, the question arises as to why it is permissible to shackle unmistakable talent with the chains of convention. This unique work by the then 30-year old composer soars to masterful heights with its individual form and exuberant emotions. It is an ideal counterpart to the classical mood of the E flat major Quartet with which Felix completed his Opus 44 four years later.