The Doric String Quartet has been a group on the rise, with fine ensemble work in readings that delve deeply into musical structures and transform these investigations into playing with great emotional power. The group has never done better than it has with Mendelssohn's string quartets, which it has released in two volumes; this is the second. The quartet's readings are as far as can be imagined from the usual proper, Victorian Mendelssohn. The vigor is especially evident in the String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13, a ...
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The Doric String Quartet has been a group on the rise, with fine ensemble work in readings that delve deeply into musical structures and transform these investigations into playing with great emotional power. The group has never done better than it has with Mendelssohn's string quartets, which it has released in two volumes; this is the second. The quartet's readings are as far as can be imagined from the usual proper, Victorian Mendelssohn. The vigor is especially evident in the String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13, a product of the 18-year-old Mendelssohn impelled by Beethoven's death to try to come to terms with the towering example he posed. The work is abundantly energetic, formally all over the map, and in general experimental, and the Doric captures these qualities wonderfully without going overboard. The two later quartets of Mendelssohn's maturity are balanced and elegant, and the group infuses them with many small details that bring out their structures. Sample the first movement of the...
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