Chiaroscuro Quartet: Mozart/Mendelssohn CD review – a shock to the ears of the best kind

Playing on gut strings, without vibrato and informed by a historical approach, the Chiaroscuro Quartet– Alina Ibragimova, Pablo Hernán Benedí, Emilie Hörnlund and Claire Thirion – has always had its own coherent identity. The two works here were written 44 years apart: the D minor Quartet K421 by the 27-year-old Mozart, and the early Quartet No 2 by Mendelssohn, composed when the latter was 18. It’s as if the Chiaroscuro’s performances, nimble, febrile and disturbing, expose the connections rather than the differences – as if Mozart, in his harmonic explorations, is reaching out to the musical world in which, decades later, Mendelssohn would mature. The group’s unadorned sound is a shock to the ears of the best, most arresting kind. The disc offers a fascinating return to well-known works.