String Quintet No. 2

This late work was written in 1845, just two years before Mendelssohn died; that he was only 36 when he finished it cruelly reminds us that he left the world all too soon. Written while enjoying a period of respite in Frankfurt, the piece contains vivid passages and moments of intense dramatic expression and much energy. Mendelssohn himself admitted to having stuggled with parts of the work and though he completed it, he shelved it as something of an exercise. Indeed, it wasn’t published until after his death, in 1851.