Short Mendelssohn Recital :
Fantasia. Andante in B ; Presto in B Minor Duet from ' Songs Without Words ' Variations Sérieuses (in D Minor)
THE Serious Variations (' Variations Serieuses '). despite their name. were composed as a relaxation at a time when Mendelssohn felt his life to be heavy and laborious. The task of their composition, he tells a friend, ' amused me so famously, that I instantly made fresh ones on a theme in E Flat Major, and now for the third time on a theme in B Flat Major. I feel quite as if I must make up for lost time, never having written any Variations before.'
There are eighteen Variations in the set we are to hear, all of them pelluoidly clear and easy to follow.