It never fails. No sooner was my 10/10 review of the Talich Quartet's Mendelssohn String Quartets Op. 12 and 13 on Calliope posted here (type...

It never fails. No sooner was my 10/10 review of the Talich Quartet's Mendelssohn String Quartets Op. 12 and 13 on Calliope posted here (type Q4803 in Search Reviews) than the mail brought another pairing of the same works by the Leipzig Quartet that challenges the Talich's superiority. I wrote: "the Talich Quartet reveals all the lyric and dramatic excellences of the music." And largely, so do the Leipzigers, but in different ways. In general, they favor a warmer tonal blend than the Talich and tend to be more volatile, playing fast sections faster and slow ones slower. Thus they linger a bit in the Adagio non lento movement of the Op. 13 where the Talich scores with a more flowing pace. They are less overtly expressive too, and their rhythm too often inclines to the sluggish. In the Op. 13's Intermezzo movement the Talich's pointed rhythms are more effective, and while the Leipzigers are even more lightning-quick in the Presto, shaving more than a minute off the Talich's timing, the critical violin soliloquy and the ensuing quiet ending are more openly emotional in the Talich's interpretation.


A similar story is told in the Op. 12, where the race is closer thanks to the Leipzig's warmer sound, but the Talich still scores with its greater intensity. The differences are widest in the Canzonetta, where the Talich Quartet, taking the movement at its Allegretto marking, is irresistible while the more leisurely Leipzigers are rhythmically square. So the nod still goes to the Talich, whose interpretations more fully encompass the full range of the young Mendelssohn's accomplishments in these pieces; but the Leipzig runs them close enough to be a reasonable alternative. Both of these ensembles are preferable to other versions of these works and both offer excellent sonics.
--Dan Davis, ClassicsToday.com