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COMPLETE STRING QUARTETS 31
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 Psalm XLII (Op. 42). In the same key are the Violin
Concerto, onwhichMendelssohnbeganwork in 1838 and
AMidsummer 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
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 the wittiest, 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.