Following their successful complete recording of the 15 string quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich, the Mandelring Quartet now embark on their next extensive recording series: Mendelssohn's Complete Chamber Music for Strings, including the Octet and the two Quintets (together with the Quartetto di Cremona and Gunter Teuffel), presented on four SACDs in total.

The first volume of this new series features a youthful work by Mendelssohn as well as the early master works, Op.13 and Op.12.

Following Beethoven's death in 1827, Mendelssohn composed his first mature quartet, Op.13, which explores Beethoven’s formal ideas but, entirely romantically, places the song “Ist es wahr?” at its centre. This work, as well as its successor, the quartet Op.12 (the chronology of publication is the reason for the reverse numbering), proves to be formally highly advanced and reveals Mendelssohn as a sophisticated musical narrator – a facet which also attracted criticism from his contemporaries.

Mandelring Quartet:
- Sebastian Schmidt
- Nanette Schmidt
- Roland Glassl
- Bernhard Schmidt