Mendelssohn as piano composer is universally known by his ‘Songs Without Words,’ a title which he invented in accordance with the fashion of the time. Like all the rest of his music, these pieces are less highly regarded now than a few decades ago. Modern music has passed far beyond the romanticism of the first half of the last century, and the ‘Songs Without Words,’ with all their occasional charm, have no one quality in sufficient proportion to make them historical landmarks. They are never heard on concert programs; their chief use is still in the instruction of children. Their finish and fluidity would not plead very strongly for them if it were not for the occasional beauty of their melodies. They remain chiefly as an indication of the better dilettante taste of the time. And, as Mr. Krehbiel has pointed out,[94] we should give generous credit to the music which was engagingly simple and honest in a time when the taste was all for superficial brilliance.
But Mendelssohn as a writer for the pianoforte is at his best in the Scherzos, the so-called ‘Elf’ or ‘Kobold’ pieces, a type in which he is in his happiest and freshest mood. One of these is a ‘Battle of the Mice,’ ‘with tiny fanfares and dances, all kinds of squeaks, and runnings to and fro of a captivating grace.’ Another is the well-known ‘Rondo Capriccioso,’ one of his best. In these ‘fairy pieces’ Mendelssohn derives directly from Schubert and the _Moments musicaux_. In the heavier pianoforte forms Mendelssohn had great vogue in his day, and Berlioz tells jestingly how the pianos at the Conservatory started to play the Concerto in G minor at the very approach of a pupil, and how the hammers continued to jump even after the instrument was demolished.
The quality of the musical taste which Chopin and in part Liszt were combatting is forcibly brought out in the ‘Recollections of the Life of Moscheles,’ as quoted by Dr. Bie.[95] ‘The halls echo with jubilations and applause,’ he says, ‘and the audiences, especially the easily kindled Viennese, are enthusiastic in their cheers; and music has become so popular and the compositions so banal that it seldom occurs to them to condemn shallowness. The dilettantes push forward, the circle of instruction widens the cheaper and better the pianos become. They push themselves into rivalry with the artists, in great concerts. From professional piano-playing--and they often played at two places in an evening--the artists took recreation with the good temper which never failed in those years. The great singer Malibran would sit down to the piano and sing the “Rataplan” and the Spanish songs, to which she would imitate the guitar on the keyboard. Then she would imitate famous colleagues, and a Duchess greeting her, and a Lady So-and-so singing “Home, Sweet Home” with the most cracked and nasal voice in the world. Thalberg would then take his seat and play Viennese songs and waltzes with “obbligato snaps.” Moscheles himself would play with hand turned round, or with the fist, perhaps hiding the thumb under the fist. In Moscheles’ peculiar way of playing the thumb used to take the thirds under the palm of the hand.’