(++++) COMPREHENSIVE BUT LIMITED

Mendelssohn: Complete Works for Piano Solo. Ana-Marija Markovina, piano. Hänssler Classic. $59.99 (12 CDs).

     Wonderfully played, classically proportioned, intelligently presented in a thoughtful sequence that genuinely sheds light on Felix Mendelssohn’s development as a solo-piano composer and his interests in different compositional forms, this 12-CD Hänssler Classic release is a remarkable achievement on many levels – even though it will not fit the music library of many listeners.

     This seems like an outright paradox, but an analysis of the set shows that it is not. Ana-Marija Markovina correctly believes that a chronological presentation of Mendelssohn’s solo-piano works will showcase where the composer began and where he ended up, with all the steps, sidesteps and missteps he made along the way. Her performances are unfailingly idiomatic (although her use of a modern piano rather than one closer to those of Mendelssohn’s time lends some of the works more gravitas than Mendelssohn intended); her pacing is unerring; and her attentiveness to Mendelssohn’s Baroque and Classical roots – Bach, Haydn, Mozart – places him firmly in context, if not within the pantheon of those earlier composers from a quality standpoint. Yet the music here justifies the contemporary opinion that Mendelssohn, as a child, was something of a second Mozart: his earliest solo-piano pieces, written when he was 11 years old, mostly show remarkable maturity, command of form, and emotional intelligence well beyond anything that would be expected in a preteen.

     Indeed, flickers of genius are everywhere here, and that is a major plus of the release. Yes, it can be disconcerting when an unusually mature and thoughtful sonata in E minor is followed by a 40-second fragment in B-flat minor and then a 27-second fragment in F. Yes, it can be odd to hear the many Lieder ohne Worte scattered throughout this set, instead of being gathered into groups as they usually are (and as Mendelssohn himself intended). But the bite-sized musical bits scattered among the 12 discs often show some fascinating roads not taken by the composer; and a few complete but very short works, such as etudes in D minor and A minor from 1820, each lasting around a minute and a half, provide real insight into Mendelssohn’s genius as well as his precocity.

     Furthermore, the almost chronological sequencing of the CDs really does make it possible – indeed, inevitable – to hear ways in which Mendelssohn progressed and developed as a solo-piano composer, and ways in which he did not. The “almost” has mainly to do with the preludes and fugues that Mendelssohn wrote at various times: he invariably composed the fugues first, then returned later – sometimes years later – to create the preludes. In these cases, Markovina plays the prelude-and-fugue pairs together instead of offering the preludes on a later CD – a sensible solution to a problem that is not really satisfactorily solvable (doing it this way violates the chronology, but playing the preludes much later would really undercut the music as well as the composer’s intentionality).

     Interestingly and perhaps unfortunately, what comes through very clearly in this remarkable, well-thought-through, well-recorded and altogether fascinating project is that Mendelssohn, unlike Mozart (not to mention Bach and Haydn), did not progress overmuch stylistically as a solo-piano composer during the 27 years in which these works were created (1820-1847). Certainly his interests in solo-piano music changed, with a major focus on sonatas in the early years (he wrote eight of them in the years 1820-1821) giving way gradually, after a period focused on Fantaisies, to a great interest in variations in later times (including the highly regarded Variations Sérieuses of 1841, often deemed his greatest solo-piano work). The Lieder ohne Worte emerge gradually and become more prominent in his oeuvre, although not more complex in their construction, over time. And it is undeniably fascinating to hear those delicate, lyrical wordless songs in the context of other pieces of the same time period – a prelude and fugue here, an etude there, a fragment of an Allegro elsewhere, and so on. Furthermore, since the Lieder ohne Worte were gathered into groups without a focus on their dates of composition, hearing them within Markovina’s sequence sheds new light not only on the works themselves but also on Mendelssohn’s overall compositional thinking at various times.

     What this set does not do, though, is provide any sort of simple, straightforward pleasure in the music itself. Certainly there is pleasure aplenty in individual pieces, and there are no performances here that are less than excellent – indeed, the clarity of Markovina’s playing is salutary in repertoire than is sometimes played with overly effusive Romanticism. But the overall pleasure of this recording is more intellectual than emotional: the strengths of the complete and sequential presentation are precisely its weaknesses for anyone simply wanting to experience Mendelssohn’s effusiveness, tunefulness, and propensity for spinning out beauty as if it is the most natural thing in the world. Interestingly, that makes the sort-of-appendix of this set – the last five tracks of the 34 on CD 11, plus all 43 tracks on CD 12 – especially enjoyable, since this collection of miscellany includes, among other things, three excerpts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Scherzo, Nocturne, Wedding March); early or different versions of works heard elsewhere in the chronology; and a few discarded or alternative approaches that are especially intriguing to hear when juxtaposed with the pieces in the main sequence. The appended material invites listeners to use this release for comparative purposes and educational ones – and it is really for the latter, educational purpose that this recording is most useful and most important. There is a tremendous amount to be learned here about ways in which Mendelssohn changed (and, equally important, did not change) in significant ways as a solo-piano composer; and along that educational path, there are many forays into beauty of all kinds under Markovina’s sure-handed leadership. However, there is simply no comfortable way to use this complete collection as a source of straightforward enjoyment of specific pieces: hunting them down and selecting them is more trouble than joy, and trying to re-create the familiar grouping of the Lieder ohne Worte is well-nigh impossible. This release is only for those interested in exploring Mendelssohn in depth. And even in that group, most lovers of Mendelssohn’s piano music – which is packed with material fully worthy to be loved – will want other versions of specific pieces or sets of pieces for everyday listening, reserving Markovina’s remarkably accomplished project to be heard, bit by bit and disc by disc, at times of greater intellectual and analytical curiosity.