Quatuor Ébène - Mendelssohn Felix & Fanny (2013) [Official Digital Download]

The Quatuor Ebène turns to Mendelssohn: two quartets by Felix and one by his elder sister Fanny, who composed over 400 works and who, like her brother, died in 1847. “Felix’s quartets speak with intimacy, but are not devoid of violent, stormy emotion,” says Raphaël Merlin of the Quatuor Ebène. He praises Fanny for composing “with surprising freedom”, saying “we fell in love with her string quartet”.

In a characteristically imaginative stroke of programming, the Quatuor Ebène presents a total of three quartets by two Mendelssohns – Felix and his older sister, Fanny.

Like Felix, Fanny was a highly gifted child, but, as a woman, her life took a different path from his. Felix remained close to her and solicited and respected her opinions on his music. She, meanwhile, produced a canon of well over 400 pieces – although only one string quartet; by contrast, Felix composed seven works in the genre, one of them a youthful work that carries no opus number. This disc features the A minor quartet he composed in 1827, very much under the influence of Beethoven, and the F minor quartet of 20 years later, a highly emotional piece, expressive of the grief he felt at Fanny’s death, aged 41, in May 1847. As it turned out, the quartet was to be the last major work he composed: he himself died in November of that year, at the age of just 38.

TRACKLIST

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

01. String Quartet No. 2 Op.13 in A minor: I Adagio-Allegro vivace
02. String Quartet No. 2 Op.13 in A minor: II Adagio non lento
03. String Quartet No. 2 Op.13 in A minor: III Intermezzo : Allegretto con moto
04. String Quartet No. 2 Op.13 in A minor: IV Presto

05. String Quartet in E flat major: I Adagio ma non troppo
06. String Quartet in E flat major: II Allegretto
07. String Quartet in E flat major: III Romanze
08. String Quartet in E flat major: IV Allegro molto vivace

09. String Quartet No. 6 Op.80 in F minor: I Allegro vivace assai
10. String Quartet No. 6 Op.80 in F minor: II Allegro assai
11. String Quartet No. 6 Op.80 in F minor: III Adagio
12. String Quartet No. 6 Op.80 in F minor: IV Finale: Allegro molto