With its elfin Scherzo reminiscent of the music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a slow movement of ethereal beauty and a jubilant last movement of perpetual motion, Mendelssohn’s Octet is one of the great masterpieces of chamber music. Conceived in orchestral terms, it is an astonishing feat of virtuosity from a sixteen-year old. Bruch’s genial Octet, one of his last works, has something of Mendelssohn’s exuberance and lightness of texture.