Felix Mendelssohn
Three Fantasies or Caprices
Op. 16

About Felix Mendelssohn's Three Fantasies or Caprices

The story behind this collection, and more specifically the Scherzo Op. 16 No. 2, was described by Mendelssohn in a letter to his parents.
During the summer and autumn of 1828, the 19 year old Mendelssohn was staying at a friend’s house in Wales. One day, one of the girls in the family came to him wearing a bunch of yellow flowers, proclaimed them to be little trumpets and asked if Felix would perhaps write some music for them. He sat down, made up a suitable little piano piece, and added it to a pair that he had already written for the other two sisters in the family. Thus came the three pieces of Opus 16 together.