Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto in A minor

Mendelssohn wrote his first concertos between 1821 and '23 while still only a boy, fresh from his meeting with Goethe in Weimar.There was a double concerto for violin, piano and orchestra, plus one solo concerto each for the two instruments (they are all without opus number and not to be confused with the later piano concertos or the Violin Concerto Op. 64). Mendelssohn's teacher Zelter set up the meeting with Goethe, but his pupil soon surpassed him by far. Dinorah Varsi plays his rapid runs, chains of trills and parallel octaves with all the necessary virtuosity. Alexander Sitkovetsky, on the other hand, moves effortlessly between the 'galant' and the French styles, and in the double concerto he and Dinorah Varsi together offer a virtuoso display, pulling out all the stops. (Sitkovetsky was discovered at just 8 years of age by Yehudi Menuhin, under whose baton he later played Mendelssohn, it being Menuhin, incidentally, who rediscovered Mendelssohn's early violin concerto and brought it to the public's attention). A must for everyone interested in Mendelssohn's early works.

On this Phaedra production Liebrecht Vanbeckevoort pays homage to Mendelssohn, whose 200th birthday is celebrated in 2009. The A minor piano concerto was written by a thirteen year old Mendelssohn for his private orchestra!

All artworks in this series are watercolours by the composer