Each of Felix Mendelssohn’s eight books of Songs Without Words is a cycle of six short, distinctive pieces in song form for solo piano. This arrangement of his Book 3 for oboe and piano is by the eminent French oboist and composer David Walter.
Mendelssohn’s friend Marc-André Souchay once asked for permission to set his own poems to the Songs Without Words. Mendelssohn refused, and explained: “What the music I love expresses to me is not too indefinite to put into words, but on the contrary, too definite.”
Song number 6 was given the title Duetto by Mendelssohn. It was composed in Frankfurt in June 1836, soon after he had met his future wife.
Book III, opus 38 (1836-37)