THE POLTRONIERI STRING QUARTET: ALBERTO POLTRONIERI (Violin); GUIDO FERRARI (Violin); FIORENZO MORA (Violin); ANTONIO VALISI (Violoncello)
The INTERNATIONAL STRING Quartet: ANDRE MANGEOT (Violin); BORIS PECKER (Violin); FRANK HOWARD (Viola); HERBERT WITHERS (Violoncello) ETHEL BARTLETT and RAE ROBERTSON (Duets on Two Pianofortes)
THIS is an even more youthful work of Mendelssohn's than the Midsummer Night's Dream Overture. It was composed when he was only sixteen. It has all the freshness and vitality which one expects from youth, but it is masterly in its command of the instruments, and in the skill with which the whole team of eight is used. In every way it betrays the hand of one who was already a master of his job; like the Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, it is music which any of the great masters might have been glad to claim as a mature work. Mendelssohn evidently had some special affection for it himself; a good many years later than its first composition he re-scored the second movement, a Scherzo, for full orchestra, and when he was conducting at one of the Philharmonic Concerts in London in 1829, he had it played in his first Symphony, instead of the Minuet movement. ,
The Octet is for eight string instruments, four violins, two violas, two violoncellos - a double string quartet in effect-and there are four movements. The first is bold and vigorous, the second, tho slow movement, is in essence a romance, rich with Mendelssohn's graceful melody; the Scherzo is in something like the same light-hearted measure as the Midsummer Night's Dream music, recalling its fairies, and the last is in fugal form. A theme from the scherzo reappears in it; Mendelssohn was among the first of the great masters to make use of this device of recalling an earlier movement in the course of a later one.
A T one youthful stage in his career Svendsen's fortunes were at rather low ebb, when a timely grant from his king saved the situation. It may well be that that has something to do with the dedication of this Octet, one of his early works, to Her Majesty the Queen of Sweden and Norway. A violinist himself, before he turned in earnest to composition, he knew well how to write for strings, and the Octet, for a double string quartet, is admirably laid out for the instruments.