I started listening to this album while I was doing some housework. As I listened, I found myself admiring the musicianship, gracious melodies and an overall greater depth of sound than I had expected from a quartet – until I realised it was a quintet and I had to sit down and listen properly. What a difference that extra musician can make.

While I have always been a fan of string orchestral repertoire, the quartet can sometimes leave me cold. What I found in these quintets was a balance of all the best elements of both styles. Timothy Ridout’s extra viola in the middle adds so much punch to the sound; all of a sudden you have the lushness of an orchestra, but with the soloistic flair of a quartet.

These two quintets are also a snapshot of Mendelssohn himself, the first written when he was 17 while the second when he was 36, two years before his death. In the grace and beauty of Quintet No 1, we hear a youthful composer heading towards stardom, but it is the joy of a man at the height of his powers that is threaded through Quintet No 2. The Doric String Quartet and Ridout bring all these emotions to the fore in this glorious new recording.

Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings