Lieder from Mendelssohn’s early years

(first published in 2007 by Breitkopf & Härtel)

”Until Mendelssohn’s 200th birthday was celebrated in 2009, over one-third of his entire song output was hardly known at all. Only with the publication of the third, last volume of the Leipzig Mendelssohn Complete Edition of the songs did the general public finally gain access to Lieder not published during Mendelssohn‘s lifetime nor in any form since his death. Today we have difficulty in grasping the reasons for such disregard – due, as it was, to respect yet, at the same time, neglect – the barely disguised attempt to reduce Mendelssohn’s contribution to the “German music legacy”, a tendency that became widespread after Wagner published his insidious pamphlet on “Jewishness in Music”.

The gap remained quite large until Breitkopf published the third volume of Mendelssohn’s complete songs (with a preview edition of forty-four songs in 2007). To measure all that we had been missing until now, you only have to listen to just one of these treasures. You will become struck with amazement that so much time elapsed until they were finally unearthed.

These songs firmly place Mendelssohn in the center of Romantic Lied production. Within his oeuvre, the Lieder now become more important, and his role in the entire history of artsong is enhanced.”

(From Johannes Jansen’s liner notes for this CD, © 2011)