Consone Quartet - Press Reviews

Mendelssohn String Quartets Vol 2
Consone Quartet

Fanny Mendelssohn’s sole String Quartet isn’t quite the rarity it used to be, which can only be a good thing. I’m not sure, though, whether it has been recorded on gut-strung period instruments before. Kudos, then to the Consone Quartet for placing it at the heart of this second volume of her brother’s quartets for Linn … It could barely have found a finer advocate here: the Consone presents it with full-bodied advocacy, the corporate tone rich, the recording acutely focused but allowing plenty of space around lines so that the voice of each instrument is heard as an individual character in the argument. The same goes for the pairing of Felix’s E minor and F minor Quartets. These players have a seemingly unerring instinct for tempo, pace and attitude in this music, responding and reacting to its myriad moods, switches of dynamic and twinges of dissonance, not least in the heartbroken F minor – supposedly Mendelssohn’s harrowing reaction to his sister’s early death, less than six months before his own. The finale, especially, seems to live on its raw nerve-ends. Volume 3 will presumably complete the cycle: I for one can’t wait.

David Threasher, The Strad, February 2026

The Consone wear their historically informed learning lightly. On gut strings with period bows, they cultivate a fine-grained sonority: a surface texture a touch dry yet overtone-rich, dissonances that speak cleanly while chords warm from within, and a blend so even that portamento and discreet vibrato seem woven into the line.

SangKwon Lee, Gramophone, January 2026

I enjoyed the stylistic approach – little vibrato. It’s a lovely light sound in the quicker movement [of Fanny Mendelssohn String Quartet in E flat major, Finale] and you get an almost viol-like melancholy and intensity in [Felix’s] F minor.

Andrew McGregor, BBC Radio 3 Record Review, 29 November 2025

Mendelssohn String Quartets Vol 1
Consone Quartet

…portamento slides, the colours and textures of gut strings – it feels like being let in on a secret, a Mendelssohn masterclass given by the players of his day.

Hannah French, BBC Radio 3 Early Music Show

… enthusiastic and refined.

Nicolas Blanmont, Radio France Musiq3

First of all, what a sound! It seizes you, envelops you, like a finely woven cashmere stole. The warm, deeply organic, human grain of the gut string brings incredible colour, intimacy and softness to the discourse here.

Fabienne Bouvet, Classica

Both interpretations are excellent. The momentum of the music, which is constantly floating, the accentuations that are so correct in the sense of these compositions, as well as the constant rebalancing of the music, really let Mendelssohn’s sheet music live and speak. An excellent and very precise sound recording rounds off our good impressions.

Remy Franck, Pizzicato

We must welcome this new and beautiful version [of Mendelssohn’s string quartets

Marc Vignal, Musikzen

Carried by a sonority of perfect homogeneity and implacable rhythmic precision.

Jérôme Bastianelli, Diapason