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Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words | 
 enlarge | Creators: Felix Mendelssohn, Daniel Barenboim
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Category: Music
List Price: $17.98
Buy New: $10.02
You Save: $7.96 (44%)
New (36) Used (10) from $9.49
Rating:  9 reviews
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 453061
UPC: 028945306124
EAN: 0028945306124
Release Date: April 15, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 19: No. 1 In E Major - Andante con moto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 19: No. 2 In A Minor - Andante espressivo | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 19: No. 3 In A Major 'Hunting Song' - Molto allegro e vivace | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 19: No. 4 in A Major - Moderato | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 19: No. 5 In F Sharp Minor - Piano agitato | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 19: No. 6 In G Minor 'Venetian Gondola Song' - Andante sostenuto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 30: No. 1 In E Flat Major - Andante espressivo | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 30: No. 2 In B Flat Minor - Allegro di molto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 30: No. 3 In E Major - Adagio non troppo | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 30: No. 4 In B Minor - Agitato e con fuoco | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 30: No. 5 In D Major - Andante grazioso | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 30: No. 6 In F Sharp Minor 'Venetian Gondola Song' - Allegretto tranquillo | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 38: No. 1 In E Flat Major - Con moto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 38: No. 2 In C Minor - Allegro non troppo | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 38: No. 3 In E Major - Presto e molto vivace | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 38: No. 4 In A Major - Andante | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 38: No. 5 In A Minor - Agitato | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 38: No. 6 In A Flat Major - Andante con moto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 53: No. 1 In A Flat Major - Andante con moto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 53: No. 2 In E Flat Major - Allegro non troppo | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 53: No. 3 In G Minor - Presto agitato | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 53: No. 4 In F Major - Adagio | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 53: No. 5 In A Minor 'Folksong' - Allegro con fuoco | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 53: No. 6 In A Major - Molto allegro, vivace |
Disc 2
| • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 62: No. 1 In G Major - Andante espressivo | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 62: No. 2 In B Flat Major - Allegro con fuoco | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 62: No. 3 In E Minor 'Funeral March' - Andante maestoso | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 62: No. 4 In G Major - Allegro con anima | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 62: No. 5 In A Minor 'Venetian Gondola Song' - Andante con moto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 62: No. 6 In A Major 'Spring Song' - Allegretto grazioso | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 67: No. 1 in E Flat Major - Andante | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 67: No. 2 In F Sharp Minor - Allegro leggiero | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 67: No. 3 In B Flat Major - Andante tranquillo | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 67: No. 4 In C Major 'Spinning Song' - Presto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 67: No. 5 In B Minor - Moderato | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 67: No. 6 In E Major 'Wiegenlied' - Allegretto non troppo | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 85: No. 1 In F Major - Andante espressivo | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 85: No. 2 In A Minor - Allegro agitato | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 85: No. 3 In E Flat Major - Presto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 85: No. 4 In D Major - Andante sostenuto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 85: No. 5 In A Major - Allegretto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 85: No. 6 In B Flat Major - Allegretto con moto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 102: No. 1 In E Minor - Andante, un poco agitato | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 102: No. 2 In D Major - Adagio | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 102: No. 3 In C Major - Presto | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 102: No. 4 In G Minor - Un poco agitato, ma andante | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 102: No. 5 In A Major - Allegro vivace | | • | Lieder ohne Worte op. 102: No. 6 In C Major - Andante | | • | Kinderstucke op. 72: Allegro non troppo | | • | Kinderstucke op. 72: Andante sostenuto | | • | Kinderstucke op. 72: Allegretto | | • | Kinderstucke op. 72: Andante con moto | | • | Kinderstucke op. 72: Allegro assai | | • | Kinderstucke op. 72: Vivace | | • | Gondellied: Allegretto non troppo | | • | 2 Klavierstucke: Andante cantabile | | • | 2 Klavierstucke: Presto agitato | | • | Albumblatt op. 117: Allegro |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Agree with all who give it a 5 star rating January 26, 2008
Peter Chordas (Portland, OR USA)
Beautifully interpreted, Barenbolm plays delicately and skillfully. This music is perhaps the epitome of the romantic classical era of piano music. Mendelssohn composed piece after piece of melodic and engaging piano music that eventually became this complete cycle. Some pieces may grab you more than others but overall, everyone of them expresses emotion. It surprises me that these pieces are not better known to anyone who loves classical piano music.
Excelent interpretation of Mendelssohn December 12, 2007
Nelson Bravo Garcia (Miami, Fl United States)
One of the most and romantic compositions ever written, "Songs without Words", interpreted by an excelent pianist. Enjoy it.
FORGOTTEN (BY ME) BEAUTIES May 14, 2007
GEORGE RANNIE (DENVER, COLORADO United States)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Until I purchased this bargain (two discs for the price of one), recording of Mendelssohn's "Songs without Words" that are played exquisitely by Daniel Barenboim, I, in the past, have listened mainly to Mendelssohn's chamber music, Concertos and/or Symphonies kind of forgetting about these most beautiful compositions, What a real pleasure this recording has been for me. I believe that Mendelssohn composed these" Songs without Words" (also included are Mendelssohn's "Kinderstucke", op 72, "Albumblatt", op. 117 and 2 short pieces) through out his short life. Daniel indeed plays all of the works including the "demanding" ones (there are surprisingly for me some very demanding ones) most beautifully never forgetting that the compositions are above all else "Songs". Daniel Barenboim always lets the melodies be heard above all else and there are some very beautiful melodies to hear.
This recording was made in the early 1970s; however, DGG has done a wonderful job of transferring them to the CD format--the sound is rich, lush and clear.
If you want to hear some beautiful compositions that are played most beautifully, buy this recording.
MENDELSSOHN'S 48 September 1, 2006
DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Bach's 48 preludes and fugues seem to me to be to some extent a diary of the composer's feelings, and I get much the same impression from Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, which are also 48 in number. To me, they are beautiful and touching minor masterpieces and when I hear them I am not disturbed, or even visited, by the thought that they are not masterpieces to rank with Bach's. However I am not as exacting in evaluating a performance of them as I would be with Bach either, and when I willingly award this set 5 stars I know that I'm setting the bar lower. There are limits to what any interpreter, even the greatest, of the Songs Without Words can find in them, but for all that some interpreters are greater than others, and I happen to know even better accounts of some of these pieces than you will find on these two discs from Barenboim.
It was high time in any case that I had a complete set of these lovely works. My collection up to now had only stretched to 14 of them, but - I have to say it again - those 14 are enough to teach me the difference between fine performances and great ones. Barenboim's accounts should be easily good enough for most of us most of the time, and in addition to the Songs he throws in the Children's Pieces plus a few other short numbers that Mendelssohn, for reasons known principally to himself, chose not to publish. With one solitary exception, Barenboim's touch is affectionate, warm and beautiful, and is well served by the 1974 recording. Speeds adopted sound about right to me in general, and the interpretations offered are full of insight and loving care, and free from eccentricity or egotism. Barenboim can be powerful when he needs to be, but the requirement for power is very limited in what we have here, and the overall impression that the set leaves is rightly one of tact, sympathy and enthusiasm. My single regret concerns my own favourite of all the Songs - the Duetto op 38/6. Something goes quite unaccountably wrong here. I'd call the speed too fast in the first place, and I would have liked the pseudo-voices brought out more strongly against the arpeggio accompaniment, but the real affront to my sensibilities comes when the two voices sing forte in octaves, and Barenboim bangs out the melody in a bad-tempered and cacophonous way that reminds me of one of Kissin's off-days.
One botched effort out of 58 is not a bad ratio nevertheless. I can play the Duetto to my own satisfaction anyway, or I can listen to it on my old Turnabout LP played by Guiomar Novaes. Novaes seems to be all but forgotten these days, but she was a great player, recognised as such by no less than Debussy when she was a teenager. Her idea of the Duetto is slower than mine, indeed for an amateur like me the piece, which lies beautifully and naturally under the hands, seems practically to dictate its own speed. However it's not the tempo that makes the impression. In this piece as in many others starting with the very first of all the Songs, what transfixes me is the haughty and highlighted clarity of Novaes's melodic line and the magnificence of her left-hand tone. It also happens that in the disc that accompanies the biography of Serkin by Stephen Lehmann and Marion Faber there are two of the Songs in Novaes's selection - a solemn and gripping op 62/1 and a coruscating Spinning Song worthy of Horowitz or Cziffra for virtuosity. The point is simply this - there is an aura of greatness that surrounds the playing of Serkin and Novaes in practically anything they do. Admirable as he is, Barenboim is not quite in that league, although I don't consider the balance of advantage to be totally one-sided, and it may be that Barenboim actually makes a more appealing job of the Spring Song.
Nevertheless I have only 14 of the Songs from Novaes, and all of two from Serkin, in somewhat antiquated sound at that. Barenboim gives me all 48 plus some bonus extras, played with love and appreciation of the soul of this beautiful and affecting music. This is a set I am going to be returning to for solace and balm to the spirit, I can tell already. The recorded sound is not wondrous, but it's good 1974 quality. The liner note is from the distinguished pen of Joan Chissell, but I can't say it seems to me to amount to much. Moreover she nails her colours to the mast with the ringing challenge `No 19th-century composer exceeded Mendelssohn in respect for Classical tradition, and such ordered modes of expression as fugue...' I dispute this strenuously. Not only are Mendelssohn's fugues not his best or most professional work, as Tovey makes very clear, they are inferior in respect for classical precedent and thoroughness of workmanship to Schumann's, as the same sage also points out. Besides which Brahms was a musical scholar of minute and profound learning, particularly steeped in the great German musical tradition, to an extent that Mendelssohn never rivalled. What Mendelssohn can claim is to be sui generis, what he does best he does better than anyone, and some of his most intimate musical thoughts are to be found in the Songs Without Words. For the pleasure and comfort they bring me I thank Mendelssohn's shade and the loving and expert guidance of Barenboim.
Portraits at exhibition! April 9, 2006
Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
In contrast to many other musicians, Mendelssohn had an evident, fruitful and fortunate association with the visual arts. Keeping in mind his education was conceived as part of the Renascence man, so we should not ignore his classical-humanistic education, so that explains why his Symphonies maybe basically, considered such arresting visual landscapes: the Scottish, Italian and Reform would seem confirm it.
The Songs without words conform ostensibly, a great stylistic and conceptual unity. It could not be other way, noticing the fact John Field was essentially the grandfather of the nocturnes for piano and Chopin the most expressive and intimate explorer of the human soul, Mendelssohn had all those variables in mind and decided to create a portrait album. As other artists as Liszt and Goethe the exerted fascination after being in Venice would work out as febrile inspiration. Every little page of this kaleidoscopic reflects different state anima; they are structured and interweaved similarly respect Robert Schumann with his Carnival or Childhood scenes; with profound lyric and evocative accent, destined to recreate the tourist memory. He achieved then to make a voluminous album of feelings but without that marked introspective mood of Frederic Chopin, for instance.
Daniel Barenboim decided to record these ebb tide piano pieces with personal conviction and lyric imagination. The result was simply refulgent and deeply inspiring.
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