Mendelssohn: String Quintets Nos. 1 & 2

Though Mendelssohn’s two string quintets sound as if they were written one right after the other, they were actually composed 20 years apart; and a good deal of revising and refining went into them. Overall, Mendelssohn’s approach reveals a very different sense of how music is constructed, certainly compared with the compositional aesthetics of Beethoven’s chamber music. The techniques used are nowhere to be found in Beethoven, least of all in his revered string quartets. Rather they are to be found in the composers who were being rediscovered as part of the growing historical awareness of Mendelssohn’s era. Mendelssohn’s interest in chamber music helped fuel his own compositions, and in a sense forced him to clarify his own understanding; thus in 1842 he wrote a famous letter stating his musical aesthetic and the importance of instrumental music:

‘So many words are uttered about music, and yet so little is said... People complain that music is so open to interpretation and that they don’t know what they are supposed to think. Words, on the other hand, they think, can be understood by everyone. For me it’s exactly the other way around… What music expresses for me… are not ideas that are too indefinite to put into words, but too definite…’ That is the aesthetic embodied in these delightful works; and it is captivatingly articulated here by the original-instrument ensemble L’Archibudelli.