I found a very nice "easy", single page, arrangement of this work in an old, circa 1930's, beat up, method book, less cover, I bought for 50p ($1) in a Charity Shop. I was trying to find out the background to the original version but couldn't find it listed in Mendelssohns complete list of works, I wondered if it went under some other title originally. Could anyone point me in the right direction please?
http://themendelssohnproject.org/mendelssohns/felix/complete_work_list.htm

Crusader, it's funny how you always manage to find things for 50p, 99p!

Charity shops - brilliant - I've been going to car boot sales to find sheet music...

Lieder for voice and piano
6 Gesange/6 songs
Op. 34 no. 2

thats what I've found so far...

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=fr&q=wings+of+song*mendellsohn&meta=


peter

Thanks rockpeter, "Auf Flügeln des Gesanges", Opus 34 no. 2 it is...why couldn't I find that?

Look after your pennies (cents) and the pounds (dollars) will look after themselves.

I like looking through old, musty smelling, tatty, sheet music in second hand book shops or charity shops, etc.. I've got some sheet music which is over 100 years old, published at the time when the piano was the main source of entertainment in many homes, it's like taking a quantum leap back into the past, but I'm still looking for one of the original prints-offs of "It's a long way to Tipperary" by Jack Judge.....have you seen it around anywhere?

Mendelsohn "On wings of Song" (Auf Flügeln des Gesanges) , Op 34 No 2 is a song with text of Heine accompanied with piano (or orchestra)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc4QC35LfhU&feature=related

It is also very often played by violin and piano :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d69cGIrE-oE&feature=related

Beautiful, melody , but you need to find a violinist

Ragnhild

Thanks Ragnhild, It's one of those songs which is addictive.....I can't stop playing it on my piano now.

The Liszt version is for 2 hands, but a further appendage would certainly help for the notes on that third staff.

Mendelssohn-Liszt Auf Flügeln des Gesanges


Mel

Here’s the first page of Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song” ... the familiar melody is carried atop the treble by the RH ... but deceptively tricky in
capturing the fleet-fingered lower workings ... which in effect provide a rhythmic 32nd lacework motif embellishing the prominent theme notes.

web page

Thanks everyone, those later versions are way out of my ability, I'll try to post a copy of the "easy" arrangement I found, it's about half way through Alfreds Book 1 level.

I recently studied and performed the Mendelssohn/Liszt "Auf Flügeln des Gesanges." Like many of Liszt's early transcriptions of German Lieder (Schubert, particularly) this transcription is very faithful to the original Lied in both it's character and in the manner in which the accompaniment figure and the melody line are so pianistically interwoven. As I so often say on this forum, Liszt's genius shines through brilliantly in his ability to adapt these vocal works so successfully as piano solos while still respecting the character of the original.

As for a violin/piano transcription, there is a "free transcription" (i.e. "freely" transcribed) by Joseph Achron that Jascha Heifetz recorded [1] that is much less faithful to the original; in the piano part it has double arpeggios in the opening "verse" and sweeping three- and four-octave rippling arpeggios in the second verse that I find somewhat out of character and taste with the original. The violin part has double-stopping in the second vers and, finally a violin tremolo accompaniment under the violin melody which, I repeat, is out of character with the original.

There probably are other versions for violin/piano that may be more tastefully done.

[1] This transcription can be found in "Jascha Heifetz: New Favorite Encore Folio for Violin and Piano" published by Carl Fischer,© 1933.

Regards,

Sorry, I tried to upload a scanned image of the page from the method book using the official forum uploading method but can't find it to embed in this post....so I gave up.

I think I've done it, the music in Jpeg image. If this doesn't work I give up - "On Wings of Song" Jpeg mage

As I said earlier in the thread, the cover and first 4 pages of this old method book are missing so there's no indication of Author, Publisher, arranger, or any Introductory preamble.

If the previous link didn't work, what about this one, I'll get it right eventually.