Hyperion Records

The unpublished Assai Tranquillo was composed on a journey from Düsseldorf to Leipzig on 25 July 1835. Mendelssohn wrote it as a memento for his friend and colleague Julius Rietz, a cellist who had also been Mendelssohn’s assistant Kapellmeister in Düsseldorf. The little piece was probably unfinished, as it ends with a pause on the dominant, but Mendelssohn signed it at that point and added a friendly dedication. In 1962 the piece was reproduced in facsimile by Reinhold Sietz in his article Das Stammbuch von Julius Rietz, now part of the collection Studies in the Music History of the Rhineland (published by Arno Volk, Cologne).

from notes by Susan Tomes © 1991