There’s a lot of unknown Mendelssohn, but if Mozart’s juvenilia gets recorded regularly there’s little reason not to try out the work by a composer who was at least Mozart’s equal in the child prodigy department. Besides, not all of this stuff is early: Mendelssohn’s own arrangements of three numbers from A Midsummer Night’s Dream ought to be in every pianist’s encore repertoire, but for some reason they aren’t. The Scherzo in particular works fabulously well as a piano piece, but both the Nocturne and Wedding March also sound terrific in the hands of Italian pianist Roberto Prosseda, whose performances have plenty of nimble-fingered character and (where necessary) atmosphere.
The other major work on the disc is an imposing Fantasia in C minor–three large movements, the last of which is a fugue, taking up some 25 adventure-filled minutes. Mendelssohn was only 14 when he wrote the work, but its improvisatory character and wealth of enjoyable thematic material certainly doesn’t sound at all immature. The Capriccio in E-flat minor, composed around the same time, also is a very satisfying extended piece. The remaining eight items are all occasional works, including several prototypical “songs without words” and an especially delightful little Sonatina in E major. All of them are beautifully played by Prosseda and sonorously recorded. There are some real gems here; it’s a program well worth seeking out and hearing.
