Mendelssohn 6 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 35

[Belle]

These are works I don't know terribly well but I'm taken by the modulations and the melodic interest. Mendelssohn always pleases:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLFnYZeQvVE

[Rach3]

FWW, Benjamin Grosvenor has been playing some of these in recitals recently, and I believe has recorded a couple. if I recall, Horowitz early on may have played one.

[Donald Isler]

These are very fine works, indeed. (My recording of the first one is on Youtube.)

[maestrob]

Very fine, Belle, thank-you. The CD is now in my cart, as is one of yours, Donald.......

[Belle]

These are very fine works, indeed. (My recording of the first one is on Youtube.)

I actually watched it and that got me interested in these works to begin with!!! They seem wretchedly difficult to play.

[Belle]

Very fine, Belle, thank-you. The CD is now in my cart, as is one of yours, Donald.......

They're just wonderful pieces!! In 2015 I went to the Mendelssohn house in Leipzig. That part of the city was still very run down from the Communist era, but the house itself was terribly moving. The timber staircase was worn from use and there was lots of Mendelssohn memorabilia. (Also at the Schumannhaus in the same city.) It appears that Felix, who died at such a young age, simply wore himself out burning the candle at both ends. And you do get a sense of it in his music sometimes, such as these Preludes and Fugues; he seems in a such a great hurry! His statue is on a plinth outside the Thomaskirche, Leipzig. Very appropriate!!

[jbuck919]

These are very fine works, indeed. (My recording of the first one is on Youtube.)

I actually watched it and that got me interested in these works to begin with!!! They seem wretchedly difficult to play.

Donald is a very virtuosic player. He was being far too modest not to post the link to the youtube.

[Belle]

That first fugue, in E Minor, reminds me of the Fugue in Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. It has that kind of complexity and heft. It also has a sonic similarity to the Bach-Busoni Chaconne in D, which means.....