Mendelssohn: String Quartets Nos. 2, 3 & 6

"The Artemis enlarge perceptions, push frontiers and perhaps question received wisdom," wrote Gramophone of the Artemis Quartet's 2012 Schubert album. The Berlin-based ensemble now sheds new light on Mendelssohn with these three works from three distinct periods in the composer's career: his late adolescence, the year before he turned 30, and the final months of his short life, overshadowed by the death of his beloved sister.

The Artemis Quartet's cellist, Eckart Runge, feels that "Mendelssohn is still a misunderstood composer. Some people continue to view him as somehow superficial and lacking in substance. The truth is that he was a huge talent and a huge intellect. For instance, his rediscovery and advocacy of Bach is reflected in his music. His quartets are both highly sophisticated and profoundly eloquent - they have both great emotional directness and that particular depth that characterises many composers' work in the genre. It is also worth remembering that Mendelssohn holds a special place in cultural history, both Classical and Romantic and uniting both Germany's Christian heritage - exemplified in the music of Bach - and the Jewish intellectual tradition." [The composer was the grandson of the Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.]

The new CD, containing three of Mendelssohn's six quartets, brings works from three distinct periods in the composer's life: No 2 in A minor, op 13, written in 1827, when he was still a teenager; No 3 in D major, op 44, No 1, from 1838 - by which stage he was already at the peak of his career, and No 6 in A minor, op 80, composed just months before he died at the age of 38.

"No 2 and No 6 could both be described as quite radical works, while No 3 is more academic in character, showing his mastery of the form," explains Eckart Runge. "No 2 is tightly and daringly written, taking inspiration from Beethoven's op 132; it makes use of techniques like tremolando and recitative, which only became part of the vocabulary of the string quartet with Beethoven's experimentation in his late works. No 6 is even more radical, though. It was written shortly after the death of Mendelssohn's beloved sister, Fanny. He concentrates the expression of his grief into 23 minutes of music. It is dense and intensely emotional, with no room for wasted thoughts or decorative elements."