Cecilia String Quartet - Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartets, Op.44 Nos. 1, 2 (2015) [Re-Up]

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Cecilia String Quartet - Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartets, Op.44 Nos. 1, 2 (2015) [Re-Up]

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The Cecilia Quartet came to international attention when they won the 2010 Banff Quartet Competition. These days they combine an international touring schedule with a position as ensemble-in-residence at the University of Toronto. For their first Mendelssohn recording they refreshingly choose two of the lesser-played middle quartets. Lesser-played but in no way lesser masterpieces, and from the opening upwards-sweeping arpeggio of Op 44 No 1, the Cecilia prove to be compelling advocates. They find a fine balance between the composer’s skittish qualities and his tenderer side, resulting in notably open-hearted readings. Their tremolos – such a favourite device of Mendelssohn – seem to come in 57 varieties, while even at fortissimo textures remain open and airy, thanks to their minutely considered voicings, conveyed via a sympathetic recording.

Highlights are many: the slow movement of Op 44 No 1 (which forms an enchanting encore to the Elias’s Wigmore Hall Live recital), for instance, in which the first violin’s fulsome melody is perfectly balanced against pizzicato viola and cello; here the Cherubini make less of the pizzicato accompaniment, while the Escher are a tad more deliberate, speed-wise. The Cecilia’s pacing of the same quartet’s finale is also outstanding – with a real sense of presto yet still having time to phrase expressively. Both the Escher and Cherubini have a real drive here but slightly less variety in their tonal palette.

The second quartet is just as engaging, its first movement given with affection without becoming saccharine, Mendelssohn’s many transformations of the yearning opening motif inviting a response of great variety from the Cecilia. I only wish that they’d included the exposition repeat (also missing from the first movement of Op 44 No 1). The Elias take this movement strikingly slowly but lend it an introversion that is enormously effective; the Cherubini and Eroica, also relatively spacious, are less heart-on-sleeve. The Cecilia capture the innocent quality of the slow movement’s opening, subtly reacting as Mendelssohn’s harmonic language darkens. And, as in the finale of Op 44 No 1, they combine energy with finely pointed details. A terrific achievement.

Review by Harriet Smith, Gramophone

This release by Toronto's Cecilia String Quartet is part of a general reevaluation of Felix Mendelssohn's music, one that seeks to strip away Victorian accretions of fragile neurasthenia and give the music a more Beethovenian mood. The argument works well in respect to the pair of Op. 44 string quartets, among Mendelssohn's most compact and intense works, and the Cecilia players put it strongly here. You will certainly sit up and take notice at the brilliant, slashing opening of the String Quartet in D major, Op. 44, No. 1, and the energy level remains high through the minuet (a scherzo in the second quartet) and the not-very-slow slow movements. The finales have an almost symphonic energy. Really the high point is the opening movement of the String Quartet in E minor, Op. 44, No. 2, where the Cecilia keeps up with the contrapuntal density that really does approach that of Beethoven's String Quartet in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2; here the quartet plays passionately and really do seem to find a layer of Mendelssohn's personality that has been obscured. They are not well served by Analekta's engineers, who choose a hard church acoustic that distracts from what the players are trying to do. This is not your father's Mendelssohn, nor indeed Mendelssohn for everybody, but it makes a forceful and worthy claim on your attention.

Review by James Manheim, Allmusic.com

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Cecilia String Quartet - Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartets, Op.44 Nos. 1, 2 (2015) [Re-Up]

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Cecilia String Quartet - Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartets, Op.44 Nos. 1, 2 (2015) [Re-Up]

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Cecilia String Quartet - Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartets, Op.44 Nos. 1, 2 (2015) [Re-Up]

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