"Felix Mendelssohn's surviving output for violin and piano comprises three sonatas, written between 1820 and 1838, thus spanning the mature phase of the composer's creative life, and a handful of shorter apprentice pieces. They're all elegantly constructed and tuneful works that you'd think might have attracted a wider following on disc and in the recital room. Instead, Mendelssohn's violin triptych is seriously under-represented on CD, and most of the short pieces haven't been recorded at all, so this budget newcomer is long overdue. The performers, violinist Nicholas Milton, concertmaster of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and the Icelandic pianist Margrét Grímsdóttir, give strong, positive readings of these works on this nicely engineered Naxos issue. The student works, composed between 1819 and 1821, are basically composition exercises produced for Mendelssohn's teacher, Carl Friedrich Zelter; but so were the miraculous String Symphonies, and these violin pieces are scarcely of lesser quality, with the two Fugues (in D minor and C minor) reflecting the young Mendelssohn's extraordinary skills as a contrapuntist. The Nomos Duo gives competent performances of these slighter offerings, and delivers tersely argued, forthright readings of the three mature sonatas."

--Michael Jameson

The Opus13 Quartet was formed in 2014 and takes it's name from the String Quartet in A minor, Op. 13, by Felix Mendelssohn, a passionate early work and the first piece they ever played together. Comprising two Norwegians (violinists Sonoko Miriam Welde and Edvard Erdal) and two Swedes (Albin Uusijarvi on viola and Daniel Thorell on cello), Opus13 were keen to record Grieg's sublime Quartet No. 1 alongside Mendelssohn for their very first album. For them, it was important to connect with the raw power of this music and the Norwegian identity embodied in Grieg's music. First Prize winners at the Bordeaux International and Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competitions in 2025, Opus13 received the Borletti-Buitoni Prize in 2026 and were selected as BBC New Generation Artists. Marked by pure and fragile emotions, this programme concludes with a transcription of the famous Solveig's Song, taken from the play Peer Gynt, written in 1867 by Henrik Ibsen and set to music by Edvard Grieg.

Sacred choral music played a critical role in Mendelssohn's life. The steady stream of Psalm settings made throughout his career provided a means through which he could make heartfelt responses to the texts of his faith. This first volume in the series reveals Mendelssohn's skill in conveying the emotions behind each text, from the festive jubilation of Psalm 98, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, to an expansive setting of Psalm 42, Wie der Hirsch schreit, regarded by Robert Schumann as the highest point Mendelssohn reached as a composer for the church.

In this album two Swiss musicians - the cellist Andreas Graf and pianist Evelyne Grandy - transform what is essentially a song recital into a programme of lyrical miniatures for cello and piano. They thread their own arrangements of melodies by five fellow Swiss composers through some unfamiliar versions of well-known tunes, casting some long-standing favourites in new light and setting them alongside new delicacies.

This album - the third to be released on Alpha Classics - is entitled Nui (a Korean word meaning 'sister'). The Esme Quartet pays tribute to Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, with Fanny's Quartet in E-Flat major, written during the final year of her life, which finds a poignant echo in Felix's Quartet No. 6 in F minor, written in the aftermath of his sister's sudden death: The Esme Quartet hears in Fanny's Quartet an 'intimate and penetrating voice, reaching outwards with urgency, tenderness and vulnerability.' The programme also features a new work commissioned from the Korean-American composer Juri Seo, inspired by the traditional Korean song Eommaya nunaya ('Mother, Sister'). 'This song evokes a peaceful, distant place where loved ones gather and the heart finds rest, offering a quiet sense of comfort that resonates naturally with the emotional landscape of the Mendelssohns,' concludes the Esme Quartet, which is celebrating it's tenth anniversary with this new recording.

A generation before the now iconic Dinu Lipatti died of cancer at the age of 33, a much less remembered Polish pianist, Karol Szreter (1898-1933), died of the same disease at almost the same age. A pupil of Egon Petri, so of the Busoni school, his brief career began in central Europe and by the time of his death he was becoming acknowledged as a major figure in the pianistic world. His first recordings were made acoustically for VOX, where he recorded both as accompanist and soloist, and we have included one example. He was then taken up by the sister labels Parlophon and Odeon and the majority of these recordings are presented here. Of note is the first electrical recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4 and three further sonatas, and - reflecting a different side of his art - five brilliant Strauss transcriptions where he reveals his stupendous technique.

This album brings together piano sonatas by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Schumann that reflect a specifically German approach to the form, distinct from the Viennese Classical tradition. Pianist Tianxu An explores works composed within a 26-year span, a period in which composers redefined the sonata through structural experimentation and greater performative expression. Central to the recording is a focus on the composers' detailed markings, including dynamics, pedalling, and phrasing, and how these shape interpretation in performance. Recorded in 2024, the release presents An's considered engagement with this repertoire and his interest in it's intellectual rigour and expressive breadth.

The Landscape of Clara Schumann unfolds like a finely drawn musical panorama: a recording that combines historical resonances, personal perspectives, and contemporary sound to create a multi-layered overall picture. Pianist Heike-Angela Moser - a descendant of Clara Schumann- dedicates herself here in a special way to the legacy of her ancestor; not in the form of a nostalgic retrospective, but as a lively, artistic exploration of origins and the future. A central element of this recording is the 1859 Schiedmayer fortepiano, whose historical character and fine timbre allow the repertoire to shine with a rarely heard authenticity. The Landscape of Clara Schumann is a poetic journey of sound: a dialogue between generations, between memory and renewal, between the historical breath of an instrument and the living voice of it's contemporary interpreter.

Antonio Stradivari's 1700 'ex Cristiani-Stauffer' cello, considered to be one of the master's finest works, was purchased by the Walter Stauffer Musicology Center in Cremona. It is now on display at the Violin Museum in Cremona. The history of this cello, though at times uncertain, suddenly becomes clear when it comes to Lisa Cristiani, a Parisian cellist who acquired the instrument, definitively linking her name to Stradivari and the cello. Lisa died very young in 1853 at just 26 years old, a fleeting star on the musical scene of her time: in just a few years, she enchanted audiences with her extraordinary cello. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy dedicated his Song Without Words, Op. 109, to her. But today, you can hear 'The Voice of Stradivari,' the voice of this precious cello, on this CD released by the Italian label MVcremona. The excellent performers are the cellist Giovanni Gnocchi, born in Cremona like Stradivari's cello, and the pianist Alessandro Stella. According to the renowned Italian critic Angelo Foletto, on this CD, 'Gnocchi exploits with loving interpretative skill and virtuosic ease every quality of the 18th-century 'Stauffer ex Cristiani' Stradivari cello, constructing a listening adventure of intriguing poetic subtlety and an intelligent assortment of accents.' SUONARE news, dicembre 2025 This cd includes some pieces written by cellist-composers themselves (Popper and Klengel). Other pieces were transcribed by famous concert performers and cello virtuosos of modern and contemporary times (Piatigorsky, Schiff, Isserlis). Others were dedicated by composers to their cellist friends, as in the case of Dvorak and Hanus Wihan, Liszt and Bernhard Cossmann, the living composer Ducros and Jerome Pernoo and Mendelssohn, who dedicated his Romances sans paroles op. 109 to Lisa Cristiani, then owner of this beautiful Stradivari. The final piece is an Italian masterpiece composed by Gioacchino Rossini: 'Une larme, theme et variations'. The combination of elegiac cantabile and explosive virtuosity encapsulates the characteristics that have inspired the musical choices in this CD. Rediscovered only in recent decades, it belongs to the Peches de vieillesse, the 'sins of old age' as Rossini called the many compositions he wrote in his later years and never published because, as he said, 'I do not publish anything; I only write because I cannot do anything else'. Composed in 1858, it offers the musician all the most typical elements of Rossini's genial style.

The Harrison & Harrison organ in King’s College Chapel is, like the College Choir, famous the world over. The organ case with gilded pipework, which surmounts the 16th century screen, is a striking feature of nearly every depiction of the interior of the Chapel, while the instantly recognisable sounds of the instrument have become inextricably associated with those of the Choir. In January 2016, the instrument – including its 4,300 pipes – was removed from King’s College Chapel for the most significant restoration since the 1960s. Just nine months later, the project was completed, with the famous organ secured for future generations. Recorded just a few months after the restored organ was heard in public once more, this album celebrates a voice reborn, with a varied programme of music that shows off this magnificent instrument at its very best. Unusually for such a busy conductor, Stephen Cleobury has remained active as an organist. A former president of the Royal College of Organists, he gives regular performances in the weekly recitals at the King’s Chapel, while his recordings have been championed for their virtusoity and musical insight.

This is an excellent set, intelligently assembled, scrupulously prepared, lucidly recorded, played with a freshness and wit that serve these delightful pieces well.

Mendelssohn's extraordinary precocity is nowhere more comprehensively shown than in the 13 early string symphonies, and though it is extraordinary that these were unknown until 1960, it is scarcely less so that there are still works in Berlin awaiting editing and performance. The symphonies are exceptional, though, in that the range of their invention far exceeds what might be expected of even so prodigiously talented a boy. He had been rigorously schooled in Bach counterpoint, and in harmony partly by way of the chorale; and impressive examples of his diligence have been published in R. Larry Todd's Mendelssohn's Musical Education (Cambridge: 1983). But the inventiveness with which this schooling was put into effect remains dazzling, as with (to take only two examples) the chorale idea in the Minuet of the Sixth Symphony or the brilliant contrapuntal writing in the Eighth Symphony, in which the more immediate inspiration was Mozart, and in particular the Jupiter Symphony.

Roy Goodman makes use of the version with wind instruments for this symphony, which Mendelssohn made within three days of having written the original, and (with one reservation) accepts Mendelssohn's astonishingly fast tempo markings. He brings them off brilliantly, even the helter-skelter bass pizzicatos in the Trio of the Minuet. He also shows, with the use of period string techniques, how quick Mendelssohn's ear was for novel sonorities. An affection for the still underprivileged viola may have come from Mozart, but Mendelssohn would also have heard these sounds pioneered by Weber (who otherwise barely influenced him in these works). There are beautiful string sonorities even in the very earliest works, especially in the often darkly-hued slow movements; and the finales have all the pace and wit of the more mature Mendelssohn (that is to say, when he was in hisleens). Goodman judges tempo well, which is to say he has a shrewd sense of weight as well as of pace. He also directs from the keyboard, which it is certain Mendelssohn himself would have done at those famous Sunday morning concerts in his parents' Berlin house, and he permits himself the occasional contribution: both in theory and in practice, this is entirely in style.

This is an excellent set, intelligently assembled, scrupulously prepared, lucidly recorded, played with a freshness and wit that serve these delightful pieces well. It includes the Sinfoniesatz, an isolated piece of romantic baroque with a slow introduction and a quasi-fugal fast section, less attractive than the other works but worth including for curiosity value.

-- Gramophone [1/1996]

The highly acclaimed pianist and composer Johannes Obermeier guides the listener through the lyrical piano world of Felix Mendelssohn on his new GENUIN album Beyond Words. As a composer himself, Obermeier brings a keen sensitivity to sound, structure, and expression, offering a particularly refined perspective on Mendelssohn's music. At the centre are the famous Lieder ohne Worte-music that speaks without words and resonates deeply. Works such as the Variations sérieuses and Rondo capriccioso broaden this musical world. With great sensitivity and attention to detail, Obermeier reveals a fresh perspective on familiar repertoire.

From Another World is more than an album title : it's an invitation to travel across centuries, continents, and emotions. At it's heart lies an encounter between two musical traditions: the elegance and architecture of European classical music and the expressive pulse of Argentine tango. Bridging these worlds is Guttman Tango Quintet, formed by musicians who draw naturally from both traditions under the direction of violinist Michael Guttman. In From Another World, tango is not nostalgia. It is evolution. Just as Astor Piazzolla once liberated tango from the dance hall into the concert hall, Guttman dialogues with the classics that shaped Western music. Each track on this album begins with a familiar theme (Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, Dvorak, and others) and let's it wander into Buenos Aires. What emerges is neither parody nor pastiche, but a transformation. Recorded in January 2025 at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, this debut album captures a moment of creative alchemy, an ensemble of classical virtuosos surrendering to the irresistible gravity of tango.