Piano rarities : Early sonatas - Songs without words (2023)

Lauded in his lifetime and venerated for years after his death, recognition of Mendelssohn’s works has been more uneven since. During the later 19th century and the first half of the 20th questions were raised about his wealthy upbringing and his Jewish heritage. His music was banned by the Nazis and criticism of the so-called lightweight, fanciful, capricious emotions said to characterise his compositions compared unfavourably with the depth and struggle associated with music of the great masters. Even the sentimental titles given to many of his hugely popular Lieder ohne Worte (‘Songs without Words’) by publishers (not by him) helped confirm them as mere parlour music to some. However, since the 1970s new scholarship has restored much of Mendelssohn’s compositional prestige, in the process rediscovering many works never previously published. (CD-boekje)