Piano Forum

When he auditioned a prospective pupil, Anton Rubinstein, would insist that the pianist first play a couple of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words.  His theory was that many of the songs are so simple and honest in their intent, that it makes them extremely difficult to perform well, and that any shortcomings of the performer would become glaringly apparent in these seemingly easy pieces.  He was probably right.

I've played 15 or so in my time, and enjoyed them.... BUT not to the extent of learning and playing Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, and Brahms.  My criticism is that Mendelssohn's writing sometimes seems superficial, even banal.  He doesn't share the same complexity and depth of inventiveness--or achieve the same beauty of sound-- as the others.   Influenced by Weber, he definitely had a thing for velocity though, a la the Fantasies, Caprices, Scherzi, etc.  Yet everytime I listen to those pieces, they are never memorable for me somehow.  They remind me of pinwheels at the 4th of July that eventually go dark and are undifferentiated one from the other.   Some of his writing strikes me as salon music, given the simplistic harmonies.  The Variations and Preludes & Fugues do not share those charateristics, fortunately.  

When I've read commentators comparing Mendelssohn to the other romantic composers, he seems to be judged in retrospect as not quite being in the same league.  I believe part of it is lack of suffering.  Chopin (love, terminal illness), Brahms (the artist's struggle) and Schumann (depression) all suffered in different ways, and could bring those feelings into their composing.  Even Liszt was at war with himself sometimes, e.g., earthly love vs. devotion to God and religion.  Conversely, Mendelssohn was well to do, lived a most orderly and meticulous life, and until Fanny's death, suffered no tragedies of note.  I surmise that that's why his music lacks those great moments of anguish and triumph that his contemporaries could create so naturally that so captivate the listener.   So I believe that Mendelssohn retains an important place in the pantheon of romantic composers, but not so lofty a position as the others.