Composer: Felix Mendelssohn
Performer: Howard Shelley
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Hyperion
Release: 2013
Size: 1.14 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Capriccio in F sharp minor, Op 5
01. Capriccio in F sharp minor
Piano Sonata in E major, Op 6
02. Movement 1: Allegretto con espressione
03. Movement 2: Tempo di menuetto
04. Movement 3: Adagio e senza tempo
05. Movement 4: Molto allegro e vivace
Sieben Charakterstucke, Op 7
06. No 1 in E minor: Sanft und mit Empfindung
07. No 2 in B minor: Mit heftiger Bewegung
08. No 3 in D major: Kraftig und feurig
09. No 4 in A major: Schnell und beweglich
10. No 5 in A major: Fuga, Ernst und mit steigender Lebhaftigkeit
11. No 6 in E minor: Sehnsuchtig
12. No 7 in E major: Leicht und luftig
Lieder ohne Worte I, Op 19b
13. No 1 in E major: Andante con moto
14. No 2 in A minor: Andante espressivo
15. No 3 in A major: Molto allegro e vivace
16. No 4 in A major: Moderato
17. No 5 in F sharp minor: Poco agitato
18. No 6 in G minor ‘Venetianisches Gondellied’: Andante sostenuto
Recording details: March 2012
St Michael’s Church, Highgate, London, United Kingdom
Howard Shelley is acclaimed as the living master of early Romantic piano music. So much of this music was ignored throughout the twentieth century that there is still a sense of discovery at each new recording. Shelley here presents the first instalment of a six-volume set of Mendelssohn’s complete solo piano music—perhaps the least well-known part of the composer’s repertoire.
Mendelssohn composed or began nearly two hundred works for piano. Nevertheless, he saw only about seventy through the press, released in seventeen opera from the Capriccio Op 5 (1825) to the sixth volume of the Lieder ohne Worte Op 67 (1845). Some twenty-five additional pieces appeared posthumously in eleven additional opera. The remainder, whether fully drafted or fragmentary, were left to his musical estate or have disappeared.
Volume 1 includes Opp 5, 6, and 7, the first three piano compositions Mendelssohn published between 1825 and 1827, as well as Op 19b, the first volume of his Lieder ohne Worte, released in 1832.