The first of Felix Mendelssohn's Three Quartets, Op. 44, was in fact the last to be composed, being finished some 13 months after he first began work on the set. But this String Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 44, No. 1, which bears the date July 24, 1838 (but, like the other Op. 44 works, was revised a bit before going to print in 1839), seems to have been Mendelssohn's own favorite among the three, and so it merited the No. 1 slot. (Numbering and order of composition rarely go hand-in-hand in Mendelssohn's catalog: his two earlier quartets, Opp. 12 and 13, for example, were composed two years apart in the "wrong" order, and the ordering of the symphonies is entirely out of whack.) The D major Quartet was first heard in February 1839 and, although there are many who would place its E minor companion piece (Op. 44, No. 2) above it on the musical totem-pole, Mendelssohn's belief that people would cherish it for its unusual "passion" (the composer's word, in a letter to his violinist friend Ferdinand David) has, over the years, proved well-founded.

The quartet has four movements, strung together in the same order as are the movements of the other two Op. 44 quartets: sonata-allegro—scherzo—slow movement—finale. The soaring first violin melody, with the help of the quietly simmering second violin and viola and sure-footed "thunks" from the cello, that opens the Molto allegro vivace is as warm and full-blooded as a quartet idea can get; the second theme is, however, cast in the rather more subdued region of F sharp minor (B minor in the recapitulation), and maintains a dignified homophonic chorale tone.

Mendelssohn moves a step backward, historically-speaking, and substitutes a Menuetto for a scherzo-proper (the minuet itself being the movement that the scherzo was originally the substitute for: a nod from Mendelssohn in the direction of the eighteenth-century traditions that were, and would always be, his musical lifeline). Marked Un poco allegretto, this is well-bred, genteel music; some twirling first violin eighth notes, taken up almost half-heartedly by the other instruments, however, save the music from collapsing from the weight of too many good manners.

The Andante espressivo con moto slow movement in B minor has a magical texture: transparent pizzicati from the viola and cello, a continuous light staccato in sixteenth notes from the second violin, and a taut tune in the first violin that every so often joins the second and its staccati, as, in fact, the lower two instruments later do as well.

Something of a gigue found its way into the Presto con brio finale; or perhaps instead of a gigue it is the same snappy-rhythm buoyancy that fills the finale of the famous E minor Violin Concerto (1844) that we are hearing. The first violin part certainly sometimes sounds as though Mendelssohn was thinking violin concerto when he wrote it!

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