Pedants who know that Mendelssohn’s Second Quartet was written before his First will love the presentation of this disc as ‘Op 13 & 12’, as well as the unencumbered pairing of his earliest forays into this genre (although he had by this point already written the Octet). The young Austrian Minetti Quartet tread a careful line between the immaturity of these works and their enormous intellectual accomplishment. Although he was still a teenager when he wrote both pieces, he was still reeling from his and his sister Fanny’s introduction to Beethoven’s late quartets (as were all those writing quartets at that period), and so they nevertheless expound a gravitas that belies the youth of their composer.

The fugue, for instance, around which the second movement of Op 13 centres, is an extraordinary example of Mendelssohn’s capacity for Beethovenian intricacy: here, as everywhere, the Minettis control a balance between the appreciation of its greatness and an apprehension of the fact that despite its brilliance, its composer was largely social and avuncular, rather than being the Romantic that Beethoven was, or as passionate as Schumann. Accordingly, they never play anything into the music that is not there. These are, after all, conservative quartets, quite at odds in that way in their reference to Beethoven. The Minettis’ clear lines and faultless ensemble keep the phrasing simple and transparent, and there is some heart-stoppingly well-controlled playing at the very top of the register in the first violin.