Felix Mendelssohn Scherzo a capriccio (audio + sheet music)

There are two individual works (meaning selfstanding works that are not part of larger bodies) in Felix Mendelssohn s catalog of piano music that go by the name The earlier, the Scherzo in B minor of 1829, is a twopage mite of a piece, short and charming. The Scherzo a capriccio in F sharp minor that Mendelssohn composed during the mid1830s is, on the other hand and by comparison to its miniature sister piece of 1829, a massive example of the species eight dense, repeatfilled pages and six or seven minutes in length, intricate and exhausting for the performer, brilliant and scampering for the listener. The Scherzo a capriccio has not led a charmed life, so far as posterity s attention has been concerned; it is not played often enough to become really familiar with its quite remarkable qualities as a piece of music. Horowitz made a wonderful recording of it, and some pianists are happy to leave it at that. But it deserves better. The piece is marked Presto sche