MENDELSSOHN: STRING QUARTETS OP. 13 & OP. 80; 4 PIECES OP. 81 - ELIAS STRING QUARTET

 Mendelssohn String Quartets Op.13, Op.80 & 4 Pieces Op.81

Elias String Quartet
(Sara Bitlloch – violin Donald Grant – violin
Martin Saving – viola Marie Bitlloch – cello)

“the searing intensity of the Elias’s playing lays bare their shock value (of these Quartets) … Twenty years separate the two quartets, and what a distance he travelled in that time. Yet Op.13 was already an extraordinarily confident piece .. In the Elias’s reading there is a wonderful story-telling aspect to the Intermezzo … in the remarkable Quartet #6 Op.80 the Elias clearly have four powerful personalities at work – how much more they bring out the heart-stopping melodies that seem to flow so effortlessly – apt given that he wrote it in the wake of his sister Fanny’s death … melodies in such movements as the gentle, consolatory theme that opens the slow movement of the Sixth, or the second of the Four Pieces (Op.81)”(Gramophone)

String Quartet No.2 in A minor, Op.13 (1827)
[1] I. Adagio- allegro vivae 8:16
[2] II. Adagio non lento 8:27
[3] III. Intermezzo; Allegretto con moto – Allegro di molto – Tempo 1 4:17
[4] IV. Presto- adagio 9:42

Four Pieces, Op.81 (1827-47)
[5] I. Fugue in E flat: A tempo ordinario (1827) 5:21
[6] II. Capriccio in E minor: Andante con moto
– Allegro fugato, assai vivace (1843) 5:26
[7] III. Theme and variations in E: Andante
– Un poco più animato – Presto – Andante (1847) 5:39
[8] IV. Scherzo in A minor: Allegro leggiero (1847) 3:27

String Quartet No.6 in F minor, Op.80 (1847)
[9] I. Allegro vivace assai – Presto 7:13
[10] II. Allegro assai 4:56
[11] III. Adagio 8:11
[12] IV. Finale: Allegro molto 5:49