The six quartets of Mendelssohn, along with the assorted other pieces for string quartet, form a firm point of reference for a number of works by other composers, including Schumann’s monumental Op 41 Quartets of 1847. Those works, in particular, were dedicated to Mendelssohn, although both composers were fundamentally and directly influenced by Beethoven’s late quartets. Although Mendelssohn’s own father described them as an ‘indecipherable, uncorrected horror’, Felix and his sister Fanny studied them with almost the same degree of obsessive intensity that they reserved for JS Bach.

In this vastly enjoyable complete set of Mendelssohn’s music for string quartet (and it really means ‘complete’, as it includes Fanny’s String Quartet), the first distinct references to Beethoven can be found in the first of the numbered quartets. It is confusingly numbered No 2 (it was written in 1827, two years before No 1) and is cleverly ascribed here to the most experienced of the young groups to appear in this collection, the Sacconi Quartet. There is a strong sense of four distinct musical voices enjoying a conversation in their performance – No 2 is in no way an egotistical piece and the batsqueaks of romanticism do not ever interfere with what was, at this point, still a conservative style. As a result, No 2 throws up more questions than the other, more overtly complicated quartets, and the Sacconis, with their elegant and understated performance, give a strong impression of being best placed to answer them.

The newly formed Benyounes Quartet start the collection with the even earlier E flat major Quartet and a performance that has all the callow warmth that the piece needs, and with a reserve more commonly to be found in groups that have been playing together much longer. It is occasionally at the cost of some romantic flourishes that, used sparingly, can lift Mendelssohn’s chamber music into a new realm of beauty. There is, in fact, very little portamento in any of the performances on these discs and whereas the overarching energy and drama of the Piatti Quartet’s performance of the Fifth Quartet can support its lack, it is more noticeable, for instance, in the Idomeneo Quartet’s otherwise beautifully blended performance of the Quartet in E flat, No 1.

The question of whether to play elements into the music that aren’t there in order to pep it up, or to draw back and let it speak for itself, is constantly bubbling under the surface in Mendelssohn’s chamber music, and the first two quartets of Op 44, played by the established Navarra Quartet and the relatively young Castalian Quartet, inject a real sense of the change of direction between the earlier quartets and the late chamber works. The Castalian’s sound can very occasionally veer to the verge of muddy in their eagerness to aim for the end of a phrase, also resulting in a general lack of anchored calm in the slow movement, but in general they continue with great accomplishment the immaculately executed white-knuckle ride set up by the Navarras in the first of the Op 44 set (and especially the Presto). These two quartets represent such a turning point that performances of them vary to more of a degree than the others, and both quartets here take a quietly mature approach but with the sense of foreboding and acceleration that aren’t fully realised until the final two major pieces: the Requiem for Fanny of the Sixth Quartet and the Four Pieces, Op 81.

So it is quite right that at the end of the Op 44 set the tides of performance truly turn, and we’re forced to sit up and listen. The Piatti Quartet open the E flat major Quartet, No 5, with such commitment and perfect ensemble that you might think you were listening to a small, perfectly homogeneous string orchestra; and to hear the final two works is to hear Mendelssohn fulfilling his potential as a great Romantic composer. Although there is a sense that the Badke’s tempo is not entirely secure, especially in the opening movement, their performance of the Sixth Quartet and the Artea’s of the Four Pieces are among the most insightful and moving on the disc.

The collection finishes with Fanny’s own String Quartet, and is a dramatic illustration of how intense their conversations must have been, how they thought both similarly and differently, and how bereft Mendelssohn must have been without her. It’s a shame, therefore, that the early, quasi-Bachian pastiche Twelve Fugues (played with appropriately detached insight and intelligence by the Wu Quartet) intervenes in the final portmanteau of the context and evolution of the greatest collection of Mendelssohn’s work, in such an accomplished survey.