The last evening of May saw an enthusiastic audience queuing up outside the Kempe Studio at The Muses, to experience a magical evening celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn. The atmospheric studio, overlooking the terraced gardens in full bloom was completely sold out; it contributed much to evoke those legendary concerts at the Mendelssohn family home in Berlin.

The Bergonzi Quartet – Cordula Kempe and Alexander Laing, violins, Neil Clarke, viola, and Corinne Frost, cello – launched the programme with the exuberant first movement of opus 44 No 1 in D, leading into the narration which, written by Cordula Kempe, explored biographical details as well as introducing the works heard. Spanning some 30 years of the precocious composer’s all-too-short life, it dovetailed beautifully with individual movements of string quartets from various periods as well as the Songs Without Words for piano opus 102, all of which characterized the great variety of Mendelssohn’s output in chamber music, from the playfulness of the youthful C major Song Without Words to the inner sadness of the Andante espressivo of the string quartet opus 44,1, epitomizing his Jewish background – a subject that would inevitably turn up time and time again.

The well-known Shakespearean connection, beginning with his early Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was reflected in the delightful Canzonetta of the Quartet opus 12, which perfectly conjured up the spirit of the Bard’s fairy world.

Another famous connection, that with the great J.S. Bach and the world of polyphonic music which Mendelssohn made accessible to the general public, was pinpointed in his own Fugue in E flat, highly sophisticated yet sounding so beautifully simple in the sensitive rendering of the Bergonzis. Part I culminated in the glorious Variations Sérieuses, played impeccably with tremendous verve as well as depth of understanding by Jakob Fichert.

As in Part II the narrative became darker with the loss of Felix’s parents, the request “In a world with too many words without song, let’s have more Songs Without Words” was much needed and granted. Light was brought into the gloom by Mendelssohn’s marriage and later the beginning of what can be called a warm friendship with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

The closeness of Mendelssohn to his equally gifted sister Fanny was felt by all in the Allegro assai from the F minor Quartet opus 80, composed at her death, which expressed his grief and anger, leading to his own early death three months later.

The work concluding the evening, his earliest yet unbelievably mature String Quartet in A minor opus 13, is based on his own song ‘Frage’, sung for us with great simplicity and feeling by the Bergonzi Quartet’s Second violinist, Alexander Laing. The Quartet itself, which mysteriously seemed to summarize the composer’s whole life, was played with utter conviction both in its drama and lyricism by the Bergonzis - from the heart, and accepted into the very hearts of the audience, as the long silence at the pianissimo ending testified.

The interwoven narrative was read by Jeffery Dench with great insight, clarity and depth of feeling.