All the works recorded here were composed between 1825 and 1835, when Mendelssohn was between sixteen and twenty-six years old. He spent much of this decade traveling, from Berlin to Weimar to Paris, then to London and Scotland, before a position in Düsseldorf ultimately led to his appointment as municipal music director and conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. The Piano Sonata in E Major, the Sonata in B-flat Major, and the Fantasy (subtitled "Sonate écossaise") are strongly influenced by Beethoven, but also show influences from Weber, Hummel, and Moscheles (to whom the Fantasy was dedicated). The two shorter works (Scherzo à capriccio and Capriccio) perhaps reveal a more relaxed side of the composer, free from the constraints of sonata form. Liszt's virtuosic arrangement of themes from A Midsummer Night's Dream rounds out the program.