Gringolts Quartet/Meta4 - Felix Mendelssohn, George Enescu: Octets

Before Felix Mendelssohn produced his Octet for strings in 1825, only Louis Spohr had composed for a similar combination of instruments. Rather than an octet, however, Spohr�s work was a �double quartet� written for two equal but independent string quartets. Mendelssohn, on the other hand, treated the eight instruments as a single unit, collaborating �in symphonic orchestral style�, as he himself put it. He was only sixteen when he composed the Octet, full of a youthful ardour that has made it one of his most popular works. It is a farewell to the Mozartian style that had characterized Mendelssohn�s early production and at the same time a first step on the way to Romanticism. The second octet on this disc is also a youthful work written at a time of transition, now from Romanticism to Modernism: George Enescu was 19 years old when he completed his Octet in C major in December 1900. The work is concentrated, complex and highly contrapuntal, a sounding illustration of what Enescu elsewhere described in words: �I am by nature a polyphonist, not at all an advocate of sequences of pretty chords. I have a horror of anything that stagnates. For me, music is not a state but rather an action�� Among the small number of works for this instrumental combination, these belong to the very finest, and are here performed by two of today�s leading quartets: the Gringolts Quartet and Meta4 have both made numerous acclaimed recordings in the most diverse repertoire.