Song Without Words in F (Op. 85 No. 1)

Background

Felix Mendelssohn published his Songs Without Words (Lieder ohne Worte) in eight books of six pieces each, spread across his whole career. Each one is a short piano piece shaped like a song: a melody that could be sung, over an accompaniment like a piano part. They were enormously popular in the nineteenth century, played in homes across Europe, and they did much to make the short lyrical piano piece fashionable.

Mendelssohn died in 1847, and the last two books, Op. 85 and Op. 102, were published after his death. This is the first piece of Op. 85, a calm, warm song in F major. Most of the titles now attached to the set, such as "Spring Song", were added by publishers, not by Mendelssohn. In a well-known letter he explained why he distrusted words for music: to him, music expressed feelings that were too definite, not too vague, to be put into words.

How to practise it

The piece runs on a continuous ripple of sixteenth-note triplets, six notes to each beat of the 2/4 bar. The ripple is shared between the hands: the left hand plays the first three notes of each group, and the right hand plays the next three, underneath the melody.

Learn the ripple first, hands together but without the melody, as one smooth line rising and falling. Listen for the handover in the middle of each group: nobody should hear where one hand stops and the other begins.

Next, learn the melody on its own, singing it if you can. It moves in long notes and short, gentle phrases:

The real challenge is putting both layers into one right hand. Hold each melody note with the upper fingers, usually 4 or 5, while the thumb and second finger play the soft ripple notes below. Work one beat at a time: play the melody note with a little arm weight, then the three ripple notes as lightly as you can, keeping the melody key down until the next melody note.

After the opening section the harmony darkens and the melody climbs to its high point around bars 22 to 24, before the first tune returns. The closing bars sweep up in arpeggios high into the treble; keep them light and let them fade.

A plan:

1. The ripple alone, hands together, at 40 beats a minute.
2. The melody alone, in two-bar breaths.
3. The right hand with both layers, beat by beat.
4. Hands together at 40, then 52, then the full 63.

Change the pedal with each new harmony, so the long melody notes are carried but the ripple stays clear. Above all, let the tune be the voice and the triplets its quiet background.

Another of these piano songs is the Venetian Gondola Song.