Mendelssohn, Schubert: String Quartets / Alfiara & Alexander Quartets

MENDELSSOHN String Quartet in a, op. 13 1. Octet in E?, op. 20 1,2. SCHUBERT Quartettsatz in c, D 703 1 • 1 Afiara String Quartet; 2 Alexander String Quartet • FOGHORN 1995 (68:46) Readers may recall my Fanfare 33:2 interview with the Alexander String Quartet and accompanying review of its recent Beethoven cycle. This newly received disc, however, allocates more than half of its playing time to another ensemble, one that I had not previously encountered, the Afiara String Quartet. Its members—Valerie Li and Yuri Cho, violins; David Samuel, viola; and Adrian Fung, cello—all hail from Canada. At present, the group is the graduate string quartet in residence at Juilliard, where the players serve as teaching assistants to the Juilliard String Quartet. Prior to this—and here’s where the connection to the Alexander String Quartet comes in—the Afiara Quartet was the Morrison Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at San Francisco State University’s International Center for th