Mendelssohn - Prelude and Fugue in C minor, Op. 37

No. 1 of the 3 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 37. Felix Mendelssohn was an accomplished organist, and he composed several dozen organ pieces of one kind or another throughout his short life. Only two Mendelssohn organ items, however, are of real weight and significance, and, not coincidentally, they are the only two organ items to which opus numbers were applied: the masterly Six Sonatas, Op. 65, of 1845 and the perhaps more frequently played Three Preludes and Fugues, Op. 37, published eight years before that. With the exception of some very early pieces (1820 - 1823), all of Mendelssohn’s other organ works were composed in the near vicinity of one or the other of these two important volumes, and seem to be either preparatory work -- exercises, in a sense -- done before Op. 37 or Op. 65, or extra thoughts and material left over after their completion. Op. 37 contains some of Mendelssohn’s most very traditional-minded music; we read “prelude and fugue“ and we think J.S. Bach, and it seems t