Mendelssohn’s obsession with Beethoven is clear from the very outset of his First Quartet, with an opening that breathes the air of the late quartets (Beethoven had died just two years earlier). But then Mendelssohn-the-young-man takes over, presenting a theme with a hop, skip and a jump in its step. This is a warm and attentive performance by the Prazák Quartet, whose long experience is evident from their instinctive dialogue and the sense that they know every corner of this music. It’s an altogether convivial experience, and that goes for the remainder of the movements too. Particularly effective is the faster central section of the Canzonetta, which is devilishly difficult but absolutely under control here, and full of detail. Their sustained slow movement, too, is an essay in tenderness. This is a fine reading, though if you want something rawer, with a greater emphasis on Mendelssohn’s innovative qualities, you may prefer the Quatuor Mosaïques.

The Zemlinsky Quartet are younger members of the same great Czech string quartet tradition (perhaps wisely relinquishing their original name: the Penguin Quartet). They borrow the Prazák’s viola-player for Mendelssohn’s First Quintet. There’s a historical reasoning behind this coupling: the first performance of Op 12 was a private one, given by friends. A week later they swelled their ranks to give the first performance of the final version of the Quintet. This was a work that long occupied him, and at one point it had an unusually dark minuet, which is appended at the end of this disc. Though it makes an intriguing addition, with its air of quiet desperation, Mendelssohn’s instincts were right – it would have sat oddly within the quintet.

The players revel in the unorthodox aspects of the writing, the slipping, sliding melody that opens the finale, the casual little ornaments with which Mendelssohn strews his melodic lines, the rhetoric of the slow movement. The Mendelssohn Quartet with Robert Mann are a tad faster in the opening movement, which is very effective, and perhaps they reveal better the music’s inner counterpoint, but overall this is a welcome addition to the catalogue.