 Both in private and public performances , Mendelssohn was also renowned for his improvisations . On one occasion in London , when asked by the soprano Maria Malibran after a recital to <unk> , he created a piece which included the melodies of all the songs she had sung . The music publisher Victor Novello who was present remarked ' He has done some things that seem to me impossible , even after I have heard them done . ' At another recital in 1837 , where Mendelssohn played the piano for a singer , Robert Schumann ignored the soprano and wrote ' Mendelssohn accompanied like a God ' . 
