Mendelssohn: Complete Solo Piano Music, Vol. 1 – Howard Shelley Hyperion

1
Capriccio in F sharp minor Op 5[6’05]
Piano Sonata in E major Op 6[23’36]
2
Allegretto con espressione[5’42]
3
Tempo di menuetto[4’39]
4
Adagio e senza tempo[6’39]
5
Molto allegro e vivace[6’36]
Sieben Charakterstücke Op 7[27’21]
6
No 1 in E minor: Sanft und mit Empfindung[3’50]
7
No 2 in B minor: Mit heftiger Bewegung[2’09]
8
No 3 in D major: Kräftig und feurig[3’41]
9
No 4 in A major: Schnell und beweglich[3’45]
10
No 5 in A major: Fuga, Ernst und mit steigender Lebhaftigkeit[7’08]
11
No 6 in E minor: Sehnsüchtig[3’25]
12
No 7 in E major: Leicht und luftig[3’23]
Lieder ohne Worte I Op 19b[17’04]
13
No 1 in E major: Andante con moto[3’27]
14
No 2 in A minor: Andante espressivo[2’33]
15
No 3 in A major: Molto allegro e vivace[2’29]
16
No 4 in A major: Moderato[2’02]
17
No 5 in F sharp minor: Poco agitato[3’37]
18
No 6 in G minor, ‘Venetianisches Gondellied’: Andante sostenuto[2’56]

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.