Felix Mendelssohn had no idea that when he presented his sister Fanny with a “song without words” for her birthday, that he was inventing his...

Felix Mendelssohn had no idea that when he presented his sister Fanny with a “song without words” for her birthday, that he was inventing his own genre. He went on to compose a great number of these Lieder ohne Worte. These works became incredibly popular among pianists, and among audiences. In the words of Mendelssohn himself, “The music I love expresses ideas that are not too vague to be captured in words, but on the contrary too precise.” Pianist Ronald Brautigam performs these works on a piano copied by Paul McNulty after an Ignaz Pleyel 1830 model.