During the 1830s tours through Europe brought Bernhard Molique widespread fame and he was regarded as one of the greatest violinists of the times, even if he could not and did not want to compete with Paganini’s mastery of the instrument. At the centre of his compositional oeuvre are his string quartets, masterpieces which lie on the fault line between classicism and romanticism.

The second volume of CPO’s Molique series features two very different quartets; the Op. 18 quartet which stands out from the first and second numbers if this opus in that it takes a large step towards romanticism, and the Op. 28 quartet which shows another facet of Molique with its gloomy and melancholic F minor key.