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TALICH QUARTET
The
E minor String Quartet
(op.44 no.2) was in fact the first in order of
composition. Mendelssohn began work on it during his honeymoon journey to
Freiburg and the Black Forest, shortly after his marriage to Cécile Jeanrenaud in
Frankfurt on 28 March 1837; he completed it on 18 June of the same year. During
the same period he also worked on the D minor Piano Concerto and a setting of
PsalmXLII (Op. 42). In the same key are theViolin Concerto, onwhichMendelssohn
began work in 1838 and
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, the spirit of which haunts the
Scherzo. Furthermore it is the Scherzo that appears to have met with the greatest
success at the first performance on 19 November 1837.
Mendelssohn composed the
E flat major Quartet
(op.44 no.3) in Leipzig during
the winter months. It was completed on 6 February 1838 and the first performance
was given on 3 April. The definitive version was given on 19 February 1840. One
critic described the quartet as ‘one of thewittiest, most brilliant compositions of its
kind’. It included a new and very typical Scherzo in C minor and an Adagio in A flat
major, which has been seen as prefiguring composers such as Smetana, Brahms
and Dvořák.
The
D major String Quartet
(op.44 no.1) - Mendelssohn’s favourite of the three -
was composed during the summer of 1838. On 30 July he wrote to David: ‘I have
finished my third Quartet in D major and I like it very much. I do hope it will be
to your liking too. But I almost believe it will, for it is more impassioned than the
others and more rewarding for the musicians.’ The work was premièred by David’s
quartet on 16 February 1838.