Mendelssohn: Songs without Words, selections (CD review)

Arranged for violin and piano by Friedrich Hermann. Alex Strauss, violin; Cord Garben, piano. Naxos 8.570213.

Even if you don't think you've ever heard any of Felix Mendelssohn's piano works he called Songs Without Words, the pieces in which he wrote down some musical ideas that he said could not be verbalized, you will undoubtedly still recognize a few of them from this selection. The first one, especially, the Allegretto grazioso, Op. 62, No. 6, better known as "Spring Song," will put a smile on your face, because you'll know it from a multitude of Warner Bros. and Disney cartoons.

What we have here is not just another collection of the usual piano compositions but the arrangements Friedrich Hermann (1828-1907) made of them for violin and piano. Not that the piano doesn't work well alone, but the duets provide an extra measure of haunting pleasure in the pieces. Alex Strauss, violin, and Cord Garben, piano, play with sparkle and sensitivity, and they have varied the selections well enough to keep one interested from beginning to end; a most enjoyable experience.

Moreover, in this 2007 release the Naxos engineers captured the two performers admirably in an acoustic that is just close enough to be vivid, yet distant enough to impart a welcome bloom. Although the twenty-two selections on the disc have a total playing time of well over an hour, they are all so brief and so intimate, the time seems much shorter. (Not that that is a good thing; one comes away wishing there were more.) All told, it's a sweet set.

Adapted from a review the author originally published in the $ensible Sound magazine.

JJP