Mendelssohn: Works for Piano Duo

Exciting perceptual shifts await the listener on this new Genuin CD by the Duo Lontano (Babette Hierholzer and Jürgen Appell) of Felix Mendelssohn works for piano duo. The main appeal of this release is Mendelssohn own arrangement of his youthful, bubbly masterpiece, the String Octet in E-flat, op. 20, which opens the proceedings. The Hebrides Overture follows, sounding as if suspended in a reverie. A rarely heard work in this arrangement, the Sonata Movement in G minor, leads into the disc’s final piece, one of Mendelssohn’s famous Songs Without Words, here the op. 67/1 in E-flat major.