respectfully disagree... " when only the latter [Mendelssohn] (arguably) show real mastery of the medium..." no comment for the Schumann quartets [giggle], but the 3 Brahms quartets are absolutely top compositions, albeit along a more traditional path. and his opinion about late Beethoven and Schubert is based on their merits - audacious, modern, groundbreaking in construction and harmonies - certainly not "19th century chrono-centric"... late Beethovens sound modern even today... yes, he IS a great thinker in all walks of art and we can certainly try to argue with him - with caution and great humility...[wink-wink]

@@cellotennis By "mastery of the medium," I meant idiomatic treatment of the quartet of instruments. Clearly Mendelssohn is the master here as compared with Schumann and Brahms. As for what is "modern," this is highly subjective, and subject to change. Just look at changing tastes. Please carefully read what I said about Beethoven's Op.106, Bach, etc. No man is a god, and that includes Mr. Brendel, much as I admire many of his contributions to music as performer and writer. By "chrono-centric," I meant the idea that "audacity" or perceived "modernness" is an odd way to aesthetically appraise music; it simply privileges music which sounds more like music of the 20th Century. We're in the 21st the last time I checked...There is much in Schubert and Beethoven which is "traditional." As I think Debussy pointed out: "To be completely original, would mean to be incomprehensible." So if we are fixated on "audacity/modernness" an awful lot of cutting and pasting would have to be performed on Beethoven and Schubert's works. I sometimes do audio editing..maybe I could create a "Musical Joke" in hommage to Mozart: HIS musical joke ends with a Stravinsky-esqe chord, and elsewhere features the whole tone scale! Audacity don't you know! I wonder why this work of Mozart isn't more talked about, to borrow from Oscar Wilde..