Born in Hamburg in 1809 into a family of bankers, Felix Mendelssohn grew up in Berlin, where he composed from childhood. At seventeen he wrote the overture to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, then in 1843 the incidental music for the play, which includes the Wedding March. A pianist and conductor, he led the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, founded the city's conservatory and brought Bach's St Matthew Passion back to the concert hall. For the piano he wrote the Songs without Words. He died in Leipzig in 1847.
The catalogue presents the Wedding March in the piano version Mendelssohn wrote himself. Its large chords ask you to play with the weight of the arm and a supple wrist, without striking; in the gentler middle section, the right hand holds the melody above repeated notes.
