Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor

For all his Romantic inclinations, Mendelssohn remained a Classicist at heart. His piano writing belongs to the Mozart-in-overdrive school of Hummel and Weber, exemplified by glittering cascades of moto perpetuo semiquavers and gentle cantabile melodies that seemingly defy the piano’s hammer mechanism. His Piano Concerto No. 1, sketched in just a few days during an 1830 Rome vacation but not committed fully to paper until shortly before its October 1831 premiere in Munich, encapsulates Mendelssohn’s deft touch and transparent scoring. All three movements run without a break, fused together by a fanfare-like passage that links into the central “Andante” and the “Presto” finale. The customary extended orchestral introduction and solo cadenzas are dispensed with altogether—another of Mendelssohn’s gentle revolutions. Unusually, the autograph score omits the solo piano part: it seems that Mendelssohn was in such haste to get the work ready, he had no time to write it out and so played the premiere from his creative memory.