Felix Mendelssohn

Mendelssohn wrote fluently and early, and his music is unusually grateful to play — it lies well under the hand in a way that his contemporaries' often does not.

The Songs Without Words are the most useful thing in this catalogue for a developing pianist: forty-eight short pieces across a wide range of difficulty, several genuinely accessible, all musically substantial. The Violin Concerto is a cornerstone of that instrument's repertoire, and Elijah of the choral one.

He also wrote a great deal of organ music, including six sonatas, which sits in the small category of nineteenth-century organ repertoire that is neither Bach nor French.