Perennially young at heart, the ACO has 
just the right touch with these two works written while Mendelssohn was in his teenage years. While the latter of these works, the Octet is well known, the Concerto in D Minor for Violin, Piano and Strings was written when the composer was just fourteen and deserves a wider audience. Exhibiting the influence of his onetime teacher Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the concerto is full of the flashy and, at times, dreamy music that precocious
 child prodigies such as the 
composer would have enjoyed playing. Mendelssohn wrote the piece to play with his older friend and violin teacher, Eduard Ritz.

Russian pianist Polina Leschenko, who toured the work with the ACO last year, is a perfect match for Tognetti. Together they bring all the necessary effervescence and vitality 
to the score with its moments of devil-may- care gypsy music, gentle melodic filigree and dramatic technical display. In all this they are splendidly supported by the ACO which (once again) proves an ideal accompanist.

Written just two years after the enjoyable, if somewhat derivative, Concerto, the astonishingly mature and original Octet was a gift to Ritz on his 23rd birthday. (Lucky man!) In addition to Tognetti,...