Even as a child, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was possessed of an exceptional and universal talent. At the age of 11, in addition to his studies as a pianist and violinist, he started composing at a rapid rate. But this highly gifted child also received a sound classical education apart from music. For example, as a twelve-year-old he spent 16 days in the company of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, perhaps the greatest and most universal genius of his day, filling the time mostly with philosophical conversation.
Mendelssohn wrote three violin sonatas. Of these, only the F minor sonata was published in his lifetime, a work in which the composer, then just 14 years of age, achieved incredible profundity and mastery. In 1953, Yehudi Menuhin found and published the manuscript of the “big” F major sonata, composed when Mendelssohn was 29 – a mature masterpiece. The “small” F major sonata was not discovered until 1977. It was written in 1820; Mendelssohn was just 11 years old.
