A noteworthy recording debut from a group already making waves
THE STRAD RECOMMENDS
The Strad Issue: November 2026
Description: A noteworthy recording debut from a group already making waves
Musicians: Opus13
Works: Grieg: String Quartet in G minor op.27; Peer Gynt: Solveig’s Song (transcr. Opus13). Mendelssohn: String Quartet no.2 in A minor op.13
Catalogue number: ALPHA 1267
Mendelssohn’s A minor String Quartet is the clear choice for your first recording if you’ve called your group Opus13. And these players demonstrate their solid collective identification with the work in a debut notable for the accomplishment and confidence with which they approach it. It’s the first piece Opus13 played together, having formed in Oslo in 2014, since when the group has built a firm reputation, crowned earlier this year with a Borletti–Buitoni Award and being named as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists.
Grieg’s G minor String Quartet is an apposite coupling, given the group consists of two Norwegian players and two Swedes. Grieg studied in Leipzig, where the ghosts of Mendelssohn and Schumann must have hovered almost palpably, but he eschews their post-Beethovenian outlook in favour of something more personal, more distinctly Nordic.
Opus13 collaborates with folk players as well as classical musicians, and the group brings delicious Scandi inflections to the G minor’s more outdoorsy moments. The unanimity of purpose at the opening of the Grieg is matched by the drama of the recitative at the start of the Mendelssohn’s finale, and by the clarity and coordination of the Allegro vivace’s skittering passagework. A debut to be proud of, and a tantalising taste of what this quartet might achieve in all the other opus numbers the repertoire has to offer.
DAVID THREASHER
No comments yet