Editing Felix Mendelssohn (section)

====Songs====
Mendelssohn wrote many songs, both for solo voice and for duet, with piano. It has been asserted that from 1819 (when he was 10) until his death there was "scarcely a single month in which he was not occupied with song composition".{{sfn|Youens|2004|p=189}} Many of these songs are simple, or slightly modified, [[strophic form|strophic]] settings.{{sfn|Youens|2004|p=198}} Some, such as his best-known song "Auf Flügeln des Gesanges" ("[[On Wings of Song (Mendelssohn)|On Wings of Song]]"), became popular.{{sfn|Youens|2004|p=192}} The scholar Susan Youens comments "If [Mendelssohn]'s emotional range in lied was narrower than Schubert's, that is hardly surprising: Schubert composed many more songs than Mendelssohn across a wider spectrum", and whilst Schubert had a declared intent to modernize the song style of his day, "[t]his was not Mendelssohn's mission."{{sfn|Youens|2004|p=205|}}

A number of songs written by Mendelssohn's sister Fanny originally appeared under her brother's name; this may have been partly due to the prejudice of the family, and partly to her own retiring nature.{{sfn|Todd|2003|pp=175–176}} In 1842, this resulted in an embarrassing moment when [[Queen Victoria]], receiving Felix at [[Buckingham Palace]], expressed her intention of singing to the composer her favourite of his songs, ''Italien'' (to words by [[Franz Grillparzer]]), which Felix confessed was by Fanny.{{sfn|Hensel|1884|loc=II, pp. 168–171}}{{sfn|Todd|2003|p=175}}