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Donald Macleod explores the Mendelssohn's honeymoon sketchbook. Including the Violin Concerto in E minor.

Few of us can readily lay claim to the descriptions polymath and polyglot. Felix Mendelssohn could. A child prodigy, likened by his contemporaries to Mozart, he was an accomplished composer, performer, conductor and musicologist. Beyond music, Mendelssohn was extremely knowledgeable about poetry, classical studies, theology, languages, painting and drawing. Indeed, he enjoyed art so much he continued to produce sketches, drawings and paintings as a pastime almost to the very end of his life. While he died aged only 38 in 1847, in addition to manuscripts, a considerable collection of his artwork has been preserved.

The biggest collection of Mendelssohn's biographical archive resides in the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries. This week, with Mendelssohn expert Peter Ward Jones as his guide, Donald Macleod opens up Mendelssohn's sketchbooks to find out what captured the composer's imagination alongside music.

Pictures of long climbs, sight seeing trips, even the tooth that Felix's new wife Cäcilie had to have drawn, are all charmingly recorded in the Mendelssohn's honeymoon diary, plus one of the few watercolour paintings done by Mendelssohn, detailing the vegetable market at The Hague.

You can see sketches and drawings featured in this week's programme on the Radio 3 website.

Paulus, Op 36 (excerpt)
Maria Cristina Kiehr, soprano
Duetsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
Frieder Bernius

Lied in A major
Howard Shelley, piano

String Quartet in E minor Op 44 No 2 (1st movement)
Henschel Quartet

Prelude and Fugue in D major, Op 35
Howard Shelley, piano

Violin Concerto in E minor, Op 64
James Ehnes, violin
Philharmonia Orchestra
Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor.