Mendelssohn: String Quartets 1 & 2

"Mendelssohn was a greater quartet composer than he is often given credit for, and the Alban Berg Quartett... take a powerful musical stand for that view", wrote Gramophone when this pairing of quartets was first released. Composed in the late 1820s, these works are coloured by the young Mendelssohn's intensive engagement with the late quartets of Beethoven - music that, at the time, was often considered excessiveley adventurous.