MENDELSSOHN Compete String Quartets, Vol 1 (Quatuor van Kuijk)

Record and Artist Details

Genre:

Chamber

Label: Alpha

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 82

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: ALPHA873

ALPHA873. MENDELSSOHN Compete String Quartets, Vol 1 (Quatuor van Kuijk)

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
String Quartet No. 1 Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
Quatuor Van Kuijk
String Quartet No. 2 Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
Quatuor Van Kuijk
String Quartet No. 3 Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
Quatuor Van Kuijk

This is a golden age for Mendelssohn string quartets, once treated with faint condescension but now recognised as arguably the greatest body of quartets between Beethoven and Bartók. Collectors can happily choose from up to a dozen recommendable complete cycles, and counting. Hot on the heels of the fine if sometimes idiosyncratic Mendelssohn series from the Doric (Chandos 10/18, 12/21) comes this first volume of a projected cycle from the Paris-based Van Kuijk Quartet. Unlike any of their rivals, they generously fit three works on to a single CD. More importantly, the Van Kuijk marry high technical polish (tuning and ensemble virtually flawless), close attention to Mendelssohn’s detailed markings and a spirit of youthful, spontaneous ardour.

While the Van Kuijk never short-change Mendelssohn’s lyricism, their playing is free of any whiff of indulgence or affectation. Phrasing with gentle flexibility and applying vibrato selectively, they locate a crucial innocent sweetness in, say, the song-without-words Andante of the E flat Quartet, Op 12. They perfectly judge the delicate balance between plaintive song and mandolin-style staccato counterpoint in the Andante of the D major, Op 44 No 1. Here and elsewhere Mendelssohn’s characteristic shafts of viola colour receive their full expressive due. I also savoured the Van Kuijk’s tiptoeing grace in Op 12’s famous Canzonetta, its central più mosso growing naturally from the opening section, and their build towards the searing central climax of the Adagio of Op 13, the successive tempo increases again finely judged.

In the fast movements the Van Kuijk keep Mendelssohn’s often dense contrapuntal textures lucid and the rhythms airborne. Not a strand of inner detail escapes them. The Allegro non tardante first movement of Op 12 lives up to its billing, with phrasing that vaults weightlessly over the bar line. Both the mysterious lull before the recapituation (from 4'16") and the pianissimo close are magically floated by the Van Kuijk.

The outer movements of the ever-astonishing A minor Quartet, Op 13, are as fierily impulsive as you could wish. Yet true to form, the Van Kuijk allow space for expressive shaping of the lyrical melodies without compromising forward momentum. Given the players’ fastidious attention to dynamics elsewhere, I was surprised at their robust interpretation of Mendelssohn’s pianissimo in the quicksilver central episode of Op 13’s Intermezzo. But this is a trifling quibble. Op 44 No 1 has often been deemed inferior to the two early masterpieces. It barely sounds it here, whether in the floating delicacy of the pastoral Menuetto (a nostalgic take on the ancien régime dance) or the surging exuberance of the outer movements, offset by pools of yearning lyricism. In the whirling saltarello finale, the Van Kuijk’s pace, poise and feathery lightness – wit, too, in the development’s contrapuntal banter – set the seal on a Mendelssohn recital of rare flair and insight.

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