Felix Mendelssohn: String Quintets Nos. 1 & 2

The Doric String Quartet is firmly established as one of the leading quartets of its generation, receiving enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics around the globe. Following their acclaimed recordings of Mendelssohn’s string quartets, here the quartet is joined by leading violist Timothy Ridout for an album of Mendelssohn’s two string quintets. These were written at the beginning and end of his short but remarkable compositional life. Mendelssohn composed No. 1 in 1826, shortly before the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when he was just seventeen. No. 2 was written in 1845, when he was thirty-six, a year before the première of Elijah and just two years before his death.

the Doric Quartet with Timothy Ridout make light of [No. 1’s] formidable difficulties. Their very effective pianissimo playing stands them in particularly good stead in the quietly scurrying scherzo…No Mendelssohn lover should be without this disc. — BBC Music Magazine, April 2022