“A composer’s oeuvre can only be fully understood in the context of his lifetime achievement. Concerts and events provide mere snapshots. I have always been more interested in the process than the highlights of an artist’s creative life. When I engage with a composer, I need to know everything about him. Mendelssohn was a cosmos that opened before me. There were worlds waiting to be discovered. My recording of the complete works is based on the system of compilation applied by Dr. Ralf Wehner of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig: the Mendelssohn-Werkverzeichnis (MWV, catalogue of Mendelssohn’s works). The category MWV U lists the piano works in chronological order of their composition, opening up completely new perspectives on the way Mendelssohn worked. It is clear, for example, that Mendelssohn first wrote his fugues, then composed the preludes to them quite a bit later, in order to publish them as pairs of Preludes and Fugues. That is also the only deviation from my chronological order: I have placed each Prelude before its Fugue, which is the way Mendelssohn intended it. Prelude and Fugue form a conceptual unity and a musically coherent form and must not be separated. The Songs without Words, on the other hand, are collections. Mendelssohn wrote them for publication in sets of six at a time. I have accordingly incorporated the Lieder ohne Worte into the chronological sequence…” (André Navarra)