Piano Quintet. Score and Parts.

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From the workshop of a wunderkind!

In 1820, with all the youthful spirit of his eleven years, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy composed a "Largo and Allegro" for piano solo. He then added a string accompaniment, from which it does not clearly emerge whether he conceived it for a chamber ensemble or an orchestra. He ultimately forgot the little work, most likely before it was ever performed in public, and turned to new, larger projects.

The performance at the University of Karlsruhe on 17 November 2000 was thus actually the world premiere. The Karlsruhe concert series headed by Joachim Draheim has already seen the first performances of a number of romantic rarities in the past.

In his meticulously prepared first edition, Draheim gives musicians four different possibilities of performing Mendelssohn's "Largo and Allegro:"

1) piano solo
2) piano and string quartet
3) piano and string quintet (with double bass)
4) piano and string orchestra (with double bass)