‘Jerusalem Quartet’

The Jerusalem Quartet, with its warm timbre, impeccable ensemble playing and unrivalled expression, is one of the best string quartets in the world. In their rucksack, they take three sparkling string quartets with them. Felix Mendelsshon-Bartholdy was only just sixteen when he composed his Second String Quartet. In this vital work, he makes no secret of his reverence for Beethoven. A lyrical counterpoint can be found in Tchaikovsky's First String Quartet which - if we are to believe his diary - would have moved the writer Lev Tolstoi to tears.  In the middle of the quartet is Anton Webern's bloodily beautiful Langsamer Satz. Before he went the way of atonality, he wrote this pearl that floats in a late-Romantic nostalgia.