Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809 - 1847)

Piano Concerto No.1 in G Minor, Op. 25
Piano Concerto No.2 in D Minor, Op. 40
Capriccio Brillant in B Minor, Op. 22
Rondo Brillant in E Flat Major, Op. 29

Felix Mendelssohn, grandson of Moses Mendelssohn, the great Jewish thinker of the Enlightenment, was born in Hamburg in 1809, the son of a prosperous banker. His family was influential in cultural circles, and he and his sister were educated in an environment that encouraged both musical and general cultural interests. At the same time the extensive acquaintance of the Mendelssohns among artists and men of letters brought an unusual breadth of mind, a stimulus to natural curiosity.

Much of Mendelssohn's childhood was passed in Berlin, where his parents moved when he was three, to escape Napoleonic invasion. There he took lessons from Goethe's much admired Zelter, who introduced him to the old poet in Weimar. The choice of a care