# An early Mendelssohn piece (sort of) and a perspicacious critic



## kangxi (Jan 24, 2014)

I have a CD of Mendelssohn's complete music for piano 4-hands played by Giuseppe 
Modugno & Alberto Spinelli, which includes a piece entitled (from the New Grove catalogue) "Lento-Vivace, g, 1820"

The CD booklet further states that the piece is unfinished, as you find out when you listen to it and are left hanging in mid air.


The author of the CD booklet, one Raoul Meloncelli, is rather impressed by this youthful work (Mendelssohn would have been about 10) and it's worth quoting some of his notes: "... the composer's taste already seems directed towards a personal style where reminiscences of the past are barely hinted at..." "...references to the mature Mozart and ... Schubert" "more evident references to the style of Weber"

Which is all very well, except that the work in question is a 4-handed keyboard version of the overture to Haydn's Seasons. It's doubly surprising that this was not spotted even by the editors of the New Grove, as the Haydn is hardly an unknown work.


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