String symphony no. 10

Mendelssohn composed thirteen string symphonies between 1821 and 1823, in his early teens, for the Sunday morning concerts his family held in their Berlin house; they were exercises for his teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter as much as concert pieces, and none was published in his lifetime. The tenth, in B minor, dates from 1823 and consists of a single movement — a slow introduction followed by an Allegro — rather than the four of its companions. The scores lay unknown until the twentieth century, when they were rediscovered and printed.