Lieder Ohne Worte – Songs without words. A series for solo piano Mendelssohn wrote over various periods in his life. I find them incredibly simple and straightforward in their emotional expression. Clear, uncomplicated and easy to digest! Mendelssohn himself resisted attempts to interpret the works too literally, or add words to the pieces to make songs; and he had this to say:
What the music I love expresses to me, is not thought too indefinite to put into words, but on the contrary, too definite. {Mendelssohn’s own italics}
Hmmm … sounds pretty Zen to me! Here are 9 pieces from the series. (the first number is the Opus number and after the / is the number of the piece within that opus)
(Opus 85 / #4) – (67 / 1) (30 / 1) (The third piece approx. 6 minutes in just blows me away! I love it. It also appears in another Mendelssohn post on this site) (30 / 3) (30 / 6) (67 / 6) (62 / 5) (67 / 2) and finally 19 / 3 (called Jagerlied (“Hunting Song” – powerful stuff!)
Mendelssohn Long Play