Felix Mendelssohn's character pieces, scherzos, preludes and concertos for piano are usually considered his best music for the instrument; the solo sonatas are not usually included in this company. This isn't entirely unfair: there is a vaguely uncomfortable feel, occasionally even a discomforting feel, to Mendelssohn's piano sonatas; Mendelssohn himself perhaps sensed this, and upon entering adulthood he gave up piano sonata composition for good. Still, it is hard to imagine a 17-year-old composer living in 1826 who would not have been glad to have written so fluid, flexible, and expressive a piece as Mendelssohn's Sonata for piano in E major, Op. 6.

The Sonata's four movements are all connected to those around them musically; the slow third movement is itself multi-sectioned. The Allegretto con espressione first movement has a gentle pastoral breeze to it—the parallel tenths between melody and bass at the very start roll along delightfully, and both they and the quick-note filler-music that arrives momentarily bear some resemblance to similar material in the first movement of Beethoven's "Pastoral" Sonata. And of course the light 6/8 time gallop might remind one of the finale to that same war-horse.

The second movement is a minuet with a slightly faster trio section. It leads straight into a quasi-recitative Adagio that is again in vintage Beethoven style and, in a moment of wonderful musical double-layering, serves both as the transition to the slow third movement and, as we learn later (upon the reprise of the Adagio recitative in the middle of the slow movement), as the actual beginning of the slow movement.

The slow movement ends with a headlong plunge, via rapidly repeated fortissimo chords and descending octaves, into the sturdy Molto Allegro e vivace last movement. All is fiery as we approach the end of the sonata, but Mendelssohn turns away from loud triumph at the end and instead draws up a gentle reprise of the first movement.

© All Music Guide

Portions of Content Provided by All Music Guide.
© 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide is a registered trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.