major, soon taken up by the piano. This is drawn out with breadth, and a middle section in B provides contrast. The original melody, somewhat varied, returns to close the movement. Presto—Molto allegro e vivace This opens with a fanfare in A minor (Presto). The piano joins in, at which point the mood lightens, and the closing rondo - Molto allegro e vivace - begins. This is regular in form, and the returns of the refrain are varied. Several themes from the first movement return towards the finale. Reception Though Mendelssohn said of the concerto "I wrote it in but a few days and almost carelessly", the concerto was extremely popular—partially due to the efforts of Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt. Hector Berlioz described what happened to an Érard piano on which the concerto was too often played: ...the piano, which is out of its mind, has no intention of paying him any heed either. He sends for holy water and sprinkles the keyboard with it, but in vain—proof that it wasn't witchcraft but merely the natural result of thirty performances of one concerto. They take the keyboard out of the instrument—the keys are still moving up and down by themselves—and they throw it into the middle of the courtyard next to the warehouse. There M. Erard, now in a fury, has it chopped up with an axe. You think that did it? it made matters worse. Each piece danced, jumped, frisked about separately—on the pavement, between our legs, against the wall, in all directions, until the warehouse locksmith picked up this bedeviled mechanism in one armful and flung it in the fire of his forge, finally putting an end of it...Such a fine instrument! Recordings Commercial recordings include: 1959: Rudolf Serkin with Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy 1986: András Schiff with Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit 1990: Murray Perahia with Academy of St. Martin in the Fields conducted by Neville Marriner 1997: Stephen Hough with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster 2003: Lang Lang with Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim 2008: Bella Davidovich with Moscow Chamber Orchestra conducted by Constantine Orbelian 2009: Yuja Wang with Verbier Festival Orchestra conducted by Kurt Masur References External links Timeline Another timeline Notes to a Performance of the Concerto Site with MP3s of Mendelssohn works, including the concerto (requires login and password) Concertos by