Does anyone know the name of this piece?

[rocky99]

I remember playing this piece years ago out of a collection of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words, titled 'Posthumous', and that's all I know. I've scoured the internet (and IMSLP) trying to find which one it is, but for some reason it doesn't seem to be part of the collection of 49. The link above is the only recording I've managed to find. Please let me know anything about the piece; it's so beautiful and nostalgic and I would love to play it again but I can't seem to find the sheets or a better recording.

[anacrusis]

I have the Henle urtext of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words, and this one is not in it, nor is it similar to any of the Songs Without Word-ish pieces he has written for cello and piano (my first thought was that you might be playing a piano transcription of one of those).

May you can message the guy playing it on youtube and ask for more information? Let us know how it goes and if you find the piece, I feel curious now as well!

[eusebius]

Hi!  I could not resist doing a little bit of research on this piece, as I also had never heard it before, and it does not appear to be included in any of the published editions of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words that I checked (including Henle).

The New Grove led me to the only reference to it that I could find.  This was in a German periodical, Die Musik, in 1924, in an article by Johannes Kahn.  Luckily Kahn included the manuscript of the entire piece with his article; it's even luckier that Mendelssohn's handwriting is absolutely beautiful and easy to read, and luckiest of all that this periodical has been digitized by the Internet Archive!

I've attached it here so you can play it If you have any trouble, let me know and I can email it to you.

[lelle]

That's very cool, though I don't know Mendelssohns handwriting so I can't tell if it's real or not. It makes me wonder though, if it's real, why is the only source an obscure article in a magazine from 1924? Shouldn't it be better known and published in print in a modern edition? Interest for Mendelssohn's music is high enough that it doesn't make sense that modern publishers would have missed this piece.

[eusebius]

I agree, it's weird.  But the New Grove Dictionary accepts it as a Mendelssohn work and that's a very reputable source.  I'm a musicologist myself specializing in Schumann's piano music and I do think the manuscript looks like it's in Mendelssohn's hand.

[lelle]

Very cool, I might try to engrave it myself for some practise! I might post it here in the thread later when I'm done, if you want.

[eusebius]

Super cool!  If you wanted, you could share it on IMSLP.

[anacrusis]

Awesome! And very strange, why wouldn't this piece be more known if it really is Mendelssohn? Even if it's posthumous?

[eusebius]

That's a great question.  Digging around a bit more, it seems to have been included in the Wiener Urtext edition of the Songs Without Words edited by Christa Jost, who also wrote a book on the pieces.  It's also been commercially recorded at least once.  But you'd think it would get played a bit more often than it actually is ...