I stumbled upon this CD while looking for some Mendelssohn to feed my classical collection. The Piano Sextet is breathtaking. I lack the musical vocabulary to describe in technical terms why all four movements of this work are so entertaining. Instead, I can analogize it to Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony or his Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66 (at least the version performed by Tal and Groethuysen)-- two works that come at you like a steam locomotive, sweeping you up and taking you on a ride you do not want to end. This work alone-- which is almost thirty minutes long-- is worth twice the price of the CD. (The Piano Quartet is ok, but more often than not I listen only to the Sextet.)

The Bartholdy Piano Quartet and the musicians who sit in for the recording are, to my untrained but not unsophisticated ear, flawless, playing with the precision and transparency of a Breguet watch with a see through back that makes listening to great small ensembles such a pleasure. No doubt, for most purchasers, they will have the added thrill of listening to a great piece that they have in all likelihood never heard before.

Buy this CD!

Both the performance and the recording quality are very nice on this disc. The quality is on par with many more expensive labels who do not even have this delightful piece currently available. Highly recommended!

Some time ago I heard the Piano Sextet Op. 110 performed by Yuja Wang and the Medici Ensemble. I didn't know this work and was very pleased by the youthful energy and sheer endless inspiration showed by the 15-year old Mendelssohn. I'm always stunned to hear what these composers were able to achieve in their young years. The Piano Quartet was composed even two years earlier - incredible!

The way Yuja Wang and the Medici Ensemble played the Sextet was in line with this fresh and sparkling energy. Curious to hear more of this music I took this CD with the Bartholdy Piano Quartet from the library in our conservatory, but alas, to my regret I must say I'm not very impressed at all by this performance.

It's not a technical matter: all the members of this ensemble are respectable musicians who are perfectly capable to perform these works in a professional way. But it's all so boring, so without real joy or energy! It's as if they are playing the works of an old man instead of a young boy: very serious, very conscientious, very correct, but without the slightest sign of real musical pleasure or a lively, fresh approach. They miss the whole point of this music which IS joy, energy, youth! I tried the CD several times but couldn't change my feelings about it.

The sound quality doesn't help either: it's rather dull, especially the sound of the piano, as if the CD has been recorded in someone's living room. So, if you want a CORRECT performance of these works this might be your choice, otherwise I would advise you to look elsewhere.

Any number of kooky theories were boiled up by the Victorians (no, not the Australian variety) and one of them was this: if the Bach/Handel/Mozart/Beethoven/ Schubert and Schumann production-line kept on spitting out melodies, sooner or later there would be no melodies left to write in the future. All bases would be covered.

Music and Maths are sisters; as a Unified Field Theory, they emphatically refute such a theorem. In any event, the Second Viennese School changed the game per se. But what if the Victorians had been right? If so, Mendelssohn could have forged a way forward: write works without any melodic content whatsoever.

Reader, these compositions are the very definition of note-spinning. Their melodic invention is feeble and enervating - and whenever they veer into a minor key it is theatrically so. There is no greater sucker-punch in music than Mendelssohn's Opus Numbers and when I bought this disc, I thought the Piano Sextet was a work of high maturity (Opus 110), not the glorified homework of an up-and-comer. The Piano Quartet is equally vapid.

As other reviewers have noted, the recording is somewhat boomy. Even if the performers were more persuasive advocates than what they are - and they sound mundane to me - my misgivings would remain.

All power to the prodigy who composed the mighty Octet and the Overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream but alas Felix was unable to replicate his feat-of-arms here.

Pass!