Mendelssohn The Complete String Symphonies Volume 1

Strange to say these works, written between the ages of twelve and fourteen and effectively a creative diary of Mendelssohn’s early artistic development, remained unpublished and virtually unknown until the early 1970’s, when they were belatedly issued under the editorship of Helmuth Christian Wolff. For this century and a half of apparently shameful neglect, the composer himself is largely to be blamed. Haunted by the phantom of his unparalleled precocity (not even Mozart accomplished so much so early), Mendelssohn was eager to suppress those works which he regarded as belonging to his apprenticeship, and studiously avoided all reference to them in the years of his maturity.