Mendelssohn Weekend - Mendelssohn Revealed

Tom Service, Louise Fryer and studio guests including writer and broadcaster Judith Chernaik and conductor Ben Parry reassess Mendelssohn's reputation and legacy 200 years after his birth, asking what lies behind our tendency to underrate him? Conductors Riccardo Chailly and Christopher Hogwood give their thoughts about the composer and what his music means to them, and pianist Roberto Prosseda talks about the recently reconstructed third piano concerto which offers some insights into the compositional direction Mendelssohn might have taken were it not for his untimely death. And Tom goes in search of the truth behind the recent stories about the composer's infatuation with the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, while the programme also hears from some of the 100 choirs around the UK singing Mendelssohn's O for the Wings of a Dove.