Guess Who?
Fanny & Felix Mendelssohn
Olga Pashchenko (piano)
Pashchenko gives us eloquence and emotion, passion and poetry. The title might hook you in, but it’s the sheer life force of her playing that will make you stay.
Guess Who?
Fanny & Felix Mendelssohn
Olga Pashchenko (piano)
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Pashchenko gives us eloquence and emotion, passion and poetry. The title might hook you in, but it’s the sheer life force of her playing that will make you stay.
About
Pianist Olga Pashchenko creates musical narratives with selections from Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words. As children, the two immensely prodigious siblings enjoyed using text to inspire their piano pieces, although which of them was the actual inventor of the genre remains a mystery. It is possible that they either co-created this genre, or even that Fanny could have been the creator of the genre traditionally ascribed exclusively to Felix.
This music, although wordless, is bursting with poetry and well-suited to the Conrad Graf piano from 1836 that Pashchenko chose for this recording. The Graf piano, a brand favoured by Felix, has a recitative-like quality that Pashchenko uses to perfectly articulate the poetry inherent in these Lieder ohne Worte or as Fanny called them, Lieder fur das Pianoforte.
Contents and tracklist
Spotlight on this release
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Awards and reviews
April 2025
Pashchenko gives us eloquence and emotion, passion and poetry. The title might hook you in, but it’s the sheer life force of her playing that will make you stay.
April 2025
Pashchenko doesn’t suggest we give this music another hearing; she demands it, wholeheartedly, compellingly and successfully...Pashchenko’s absolute mastery of this 1836 Graf, built during the maker’s peak period between 1822 and 1842, plays a significant role in these performances’ brilliance.
The title of Guess Who? invites us to listen blind as she plays 30 pieces by the famous brother and the sister whose social circumstances restricted her musical career… Pashchenko certainly makes no distinction between the two, treating what might appear to be salon music with the dignity and subtlety that these polished and thoughtful miniatures deserve. All very refreshing.
