Felix Mendelssohn’s Quartets in A and F minor, the one an astonishing response to the challenge of late Beethoven, the other an outpouring of anguish after his sister Fanny’s death, are, for me, among the most moving of all post-Beethoven quartets. Fanny’s sole string quartet, unpublished until 1988, may be more modest in aspiration, yet it is not cowed in their company. Her writing for strings is expert and idiomatic, and like her brother she wears her contrapuntal learning with nonchalant ease. Both the quartet’s wistful opening and the Scherzo’s gallumphing, mock-fugal Trio reveal her love, shared with Felix, of Beethoven’s Harp Quartet. But Fanny has a distinctive voice of her own, above all in the fantasia-like Adagio – an original beginning to a string quartet in 1834 – and the plaintive Romanze third movement, with its sudden flares of passion.

Deploying their familiar finesse (immaculate tuning and ensemble) and care for detail, the Takács do brother and sister proud. Differences between them and the Ébène Quartet, in their superb disc of the same three works, are often minimal. To generalise, the Takács cultivate a slightly warmer corporate tone and make freer use of portamento. The opening of Fanny’s Quartet sounds more overtly Romantic in their hands. Conversely, the Ébène are more puckishly playful in the Scherzo, and in the gossamer flights of the Intermezzo in Felix’s Op 13. Both groups balance fiery urgency and lyrical grace in Op 13’s outer movements. The Takács create a magical sense of time suspended at the climax of the first movement’s development, while leader Edward Dusinberre is a model of eloquence and restrained pathos in the finale’s recitatives. The cathartic ending is truly cantando e dolce, as Mendelssohn requests.

With their whiplash attack and unfailing attention to Mendelssohn’s disruptive inner voices, the Takács are just as impressive in the fevered world of the late F minor Quartet. The second movement – more like a savage Dvořák furiant than the familiar quicksilver Mendelssohn Scherzo – is properly remorseless, the Adagio generously phrased and coloured, enhanced by expressive touches of portamento. At the Takács’s relatively flowing tempo this searching movement, surely a Requiem for Fanny, unfolds against the background of a funeral march. They make the most, too, of the finale’s unnerving juxtapositions of smouldering disquiet and explosive violence, culminating in a final page of barely controlled delirium. No version I know of Op 80 quite matches the Leipzig Quartet (MDG) for sheer risk-taking intensity. But if you want these three particular works – and Fanny’s Quartet will be a welcome discovery for many – the vital, ever-imaginative Takács are at least a match for the Ébène. If you’re hovering, Hyperion’s superior presentation, with a wide-ranging essay from Mendelssohn scholar Larry Todd, may clinch it.