Song Without Words

Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worte (Songs Without Words) — eight books published between 1832 and 1845 — are the central Romantic intermediate-grade repertoire alongside Schumann's piano cycles. The first book opens with the E-major Andante con moto later given the title Sweet Remembrance by Mendelssohn's English publisher; the piece is a lyrical melodic line over a continuous broken-chord accompaniment, in the manner of a hymn or chorale.

Technically the piece tests three things: voicing a sustained right-hand melody clearly above a continuous broken-chord left-hand accompaniment, sensitive pedalling that clarifies the harmonic shifts without blurring the melodic line, and a small but decisive dynamic plan that tracks the piece's arc. The right hand has the melody and the left hand has the harmonic substance — the standard Lieder ohne Worte texture and a model of how Mendelssohn used it.

Two pitfalls. First, the broken-chord accompaniment can become metronomic — practise the left hand alone and shape it with a small dynamic curve under each phrase, with the bass note arriving on the beat as a clear pulse. Second, the dynamic plan often gets ignored; the piece has a quiet opening, a small middle climax, and a return to quiet, and ignoring the arc flattens the reading.

The complete Lieder ohne Worte are on IMSLP in clean public-domain editions. Hearing the surrounding pieces in Op. 19 — particularly the Hunting Song later in the book — calibrates the variety Mendelssohn brought to the texture.