Sun 16 Feb 25
10:30
This event is free – no tickets required.
Turner Sims, Building 52, Highfield Campus, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ
Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words started off in 1832 as ‘Original Melodies for the Pianoforte’ (published in London by Novellos), but Felix soon thought of a better title. Fanny stuck to calling her similar pieces just ‘Lieder für das Pianoforte’. So why did Felix mention ‘words’?
David Owen Norris suggests that the answer lies in a secret code understood only by a few of Mendelssohn’s close friends, and uses Mendelssohn’s hairpins to unpick the lock...
