ABSTRACT
To discuss music by Mendelssohn as if one were dealing with art of unquestionable quality would be a wasted effort. The most familiar reproach against Mendelssohn's composing is that he merely adopted traditional forms and filled them up in a new way but at the same time also misunderstood and undermined them. The fact that Mendelssohn's developments do not primarily aim at intensive thematic working out would be open to objection if the themes were designed for that. Mendelssohn's melodic style frequently encounters the reproach that it lacks profile, and undeniably there is a homogeneousness about it, which can upset its supporters. Mendelssohn's rhythmic idiom shares with almost all the components of his style of composition the fact that its problemlessness is not unproblematic. It would be tedious to go on in detail about its power, originality, or complexity. One must further modify in view of the stages of Mendelssohn's compositional progress, which the quartets document especially well.
