String Quartet in E minor, Op.44, No.2

Having written virtually no chamber music since the String Quartet in E flat eight years earlier - largely because of his involvement with his orchestras in Düsseldorf and Leipzig - Mendelssohn found the time and the inspiration to return to the medium when on honeymoon in the Black Forest in the spring of 1837. Strangely, however, the Quartet in E minor, which was begun at that time and completed in the summer, is beset by anxieties which it cannot shake off. Regularly compared to the Violin Concerto in the same key, it is actually denied the happy ending of the later work.

The passionate opening theme - a close relative of the main theme of the finale of Mozart’s Symphony in G minor, itself a byword for anxiety - dominates the first movement. The consolatory second subject, introduced in G major by first violin after a transitional passage of prolonged turbulence, has no more than a passing influence: all that is heard of it is a promptly suppressed entry in the development section, a regulation recall in E major in the recapitulation and a brief tranquillo allusion before the firmly E minor ending.

Highly characteristic Mendelssohn material though they are, the two middle movements - a beautifully scored fairy-tale Scherzo in E major and a lyrical song-without-words Andante in G major - are not so much contributions to the long-term argument as interludes within it. The Presto agitato resumes the drama in E minor as though nothing had happened in the meantime. While the positively elated second subject has more influence than its counterpart in the first movement - it even persuades the agitated main theme to put in an appearance in an extended passage in E major in the recapitulation - the outcome, confirmed by a con fuoco coda in E minor, is no less desperate for that.

Having written virtually no chamber music since the String Quartet in E flat eight years earlier - largely because of his involvement with his orchestras in Düsseldorf and Leipzig - Mendelssohn found the time and the inspiration to return to the medium when on honeymoon in the Black Forest in the spring of 1837. Strangely, however, the Quartet in E minor, which was begun at that time and completed in the summer, is beset by anxieties which it cannot shake off. Regularly compared to the Violin Concerto in the same key, it is actually denied the E-major happy ending accorded to the later work. If it had been intended from the first as one of a set of three, as a minor-key contrast between two more cheerful companions in the major, its unhappy mood could have been assumed for professional purposes. But, although it was eventually published that way, as Op.42 No.2 between quartets in D major and E flat major, it was not conceived that way.

The passionate opening theme - a close relative of the main theme of the finale of Mozart’s Symphony in G minor, itself a byword for anxiety - dominates the first movement. The consolatory second subject, introduced in G major by first violin after a transitional passage of prolonged turbulence, has no more than a passing influence: all that is heard of it is a promptly suppressed entry in the development section, a regulation recall in E major in the recapitulation and a brief tranquillo allusion before the firmly E minor ending.

Highly characteristic Mendelssohn material though they are, the two middle movements - a beautifully scored fairy-tale Scherzo in E major and a lyrical Andante in G major - are not so much contributions to the long-term argument as interludes within it. The Presto agitato resumes the drama in E minor as though nothing had happened in the meantime. While the positively elated second subject has more influence than its counterpart in the first movement - it even persuades the agitated main theme to put in an appearance in an extended passage in E major in the recapitulation - the outcome, confirmed by a con fuoco coda in E minor, is no less desperate for that.