About this Piece

Felix Mendelssohn was one of the greatest organists of his day, and he played a major role in the Bach revival, conducting masterpieces such as the St. Matthew Passion and performing many of Bach’s organ pieces. (“The Toccata in F, with the modulations at the end, sounded as if it would bring down the church!” Mendelssohn wrote after a performance he gave of it in London.)

Mendelssohn composed many organ works himself, including six sonatas written for an English publisher. He completed the Sonata No. 1 (not the first chronologically) in December 1844. Although some of the sonatas of this set exhibit superficial similarities of form to other Romantic sonatas, they are more closely aligned with the English voluntary of the time, multi-sectional, toccata-like pieces played before or after Anglican church services. The Sonata No. 1 opens with a substantial, serious movement that alternates aggressive imitative writing with soft phrases of the German chorale “The Will of God Be Always Done.” For all its lyric reflection, the slow movement is also pointedly developed in terms of motivic work. The ensuing Recitativo, a dramatic thing of ghostly little canonic bits interrupted by heavy chords, is really an introduction to the finale, a vigorously rushing toccata in F major. —John Henken