Mendelssohn - String Quintets Nos. 1 and 2
Danilo Rossi (viola)
Fine Arts Quartet
The A major first quintet, Op 18... [is] scored for the Mozartian quintet lineup with two violas rather than the two cellos that Boccherini and later Schubert favoured, it inhabits an ingratiatingly...
Mendelssohn - String Quintets Nos. 1 and 2
Danilo Rossi (viola)
Fine Arts Quartet
Purchase product
The A major first quintet, Op 18... [is] scored for the Mozartian quintet lineup with two violas rather than the two cellos that Boccherini and later Schubert favoured, it inhabits an ingratiatingly...
About
Mendelssohn’s musical precocity, both as a player and as a performer, manifested itself at a remarkably early age. In 1826, when he was only 17, Mendelssohn wrote not only his Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream but the first of his two string quintets. The String Quintet No. 2 followed 19 years later, in 1845, two years before his death. Despite the intervening years, the two Quintets are similar in style and form, with richly melodic and haunting slow movements and two wonderfully contrasting scherzos
Contents and tracklist
- Danilo Rossi (viola)
- Fine Arts Quartet
- Recorded: 21-24 March 2007
- Recording Venue: Il Bagno, Steinfurt, Germany
- Danilo Rossi (viola)
- Fine Arts Quartet
- Recorded: 21-24 March 2007
- Recording Venue: Il Bagno, Steinfurt, Germany
- Danilo Rossi (viola)
- Fine Arts Quartet
- Recorded: 21-24 March 2007
- Recording Venue: Il Bagno, Steinfurt, Germany
Awards and reviews
6th June 2008
The A major first quintet, Op 18... [is] scored for the Mozartian quintet lineup with two violas rather than the two cellos that Boccherini and later Schubert favoured, it inhabits an ingratiatingly charming, ebullient world. The second in B flat Op 87 was composed in 1845; it's just as energetic but not quite as carefree or melodically inventive. This is underlined by the edgy recorded sound and the brisk, business-like efficiency of the Fine Arts Quartet, which sometimes give Mendelssohn's unabashed lyricism rather short shrift.
