Six Sonatas For The Organ (op. 65), 1844–1845

This chapter presents reviews of Mendelssohn's Organ Sonatas. On 15 September 1845, Mendelssohn's Six Sonatas for the Organ appeared in print. The critical response to the Sonatas was virtually unanimous, and as early as April 1846 Dr. Edmund Chipp (1823-86) of Ely “was one of the first — probably the first — to play the organ sonatas in public, at an Organ Recital at Walker's organ factory... On one occasion [he] played the whole six in succession, entirely from memory.” The Organ Sonatas were reviewed in Germany's two leading musical journals. In an exhaustive review in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, published in three installments, Eduard Krüger both applauded and faulted them, in both general and specific terms. A reviewer for AMZ August Gottfried Ritter was quite content with the designation sonata and agreed that the term was well chosen and appropriate. In France, Mendelssohn's Organ Sonatas were not published until early 1846, but only shortly afterwards they were reviewed by one of the country's leading activists for the reform and improvement of church music, Jean-Louis-Félix Danjou.