Mendelssohn Rarities (2007)

It's a bit odd that the four piano sonatas on this recording are almost completely unknown, given that Felix Mendelssohn's 12 string symphonies date from perhaps a year later and are fairly often performed and recorded. The sonatas are indeed youthful works, dating from 1820 when Mendelssohn was just 11. Yet they are already entirely characteristic works. All are in minor keys, and they have the admirable concision of the string symphonies; Mendelssohn avoided the tendency of so many other young composers to go all over the ... Read More

It's a bit odd that the four piano sonatas on this recording are almost completely unknown, given that Felix Mendelssohn's 12 string symphonies date from perhaps a year later and are fairly often performed and recorded. The sonatas are indeed youthful works, dating from 1820 when Mendelssohn was just 11. Yet they are already entirely characteristic works. All are in minor keys, and they have the admirable concision of the string symphonies; Mendelssohn avoided the tendency of so many other young composers to go all over the map. The A minor Sonata (tracks 7-9) is the most purely Classical in inspiration, but all four works have the distinctive delicate melancholy that is the essence of Mendelssohn's language. These sonatas, in fact, are more "Mendelssohnian" than the slightly later fugues and etudes that finish out the program, but these pieces too are interesting: in them lies the Mendelssohn of the Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 52 ("Lobgesang"), and in general his intermittently successful but... Read Less