The complete Mendelssohn quartets by Cherubini Quartett: a tapered reading and simmering

Along with that of Schumann, this cycle of the Saxon composer unfortunately remains one of the most underrated in the romantic repertoire.

Yet we hear is passionate conquer the mastery of classical language in the first opus 12 and 13 (which is also reflected affliction related to the death of Beethoven), the formal balance of the three Opus 44 and the terrible emotion the ultimate opus 80, stigmatized by the untimely death of the beloved sister and the anguish of a sensed nothing.

The discography of these works seems to enjoy a new interest earned for twenty years, with the full initiated by the Melos (DG), then those of Talich (Calliope), Artis (Agreement) Isaye (Decca) or Emerson (DG).

Captured in the early 1990s in Doopsgezinde Gemeente Kerk in Haarlem and Langasthof Riehen-Basel-bei, the version of the Cherubini Quartet revisited these pages by an extraordinarily detailed reading, both instrumentally and emotionally, scanning the slightest tremor versatile and elusive climates that hatched there.

To discover these works, the soft approach and almost Schubert's Viennese style Artis Quartett (reissued in cabinet) is undoubtedly an attractive entry point.
To deepen the Cherubini Quartett bows sensitivity of the flower is an eloquent guide to understanding this aesthetic universe much deeper and complex than it appears.