It’s common these days to present the music of siblings Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn side by side, if only to demonstrate how well Fanny’s neglected works bear the comparison. But it’s not often done so thoughtfully or meaningfully as on this album, which surveys their achievements in the medium of the string quartet. With Fanny there was just the one, composed with Beethovenian passion and a free approach to form that her more rule-bound brother disapproved of. But it makes a neat fit with the first and last of Felix’s acknowledged output: the early A Minor, written when he was a teenager, and the dark, disconsolate F Minor, written just after Fanny’s death and very much in memoriam. The Takács Quartet notes the grief judiciously, without indulgence. And their playing overall is measured, elegant, with an acute intelligence.
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