By far the most enjoyable article I've read about Mendelssohn so far in this, his bicentenary year, was in today's New Yorker online, written by Alex Ross, whose blog, The Rest is Noise, you'll notice in my sidebar (under music blogs):
“He never lost control of himself,” Wagner once said of Mendelssohn. The fundamental problem for so many Romantically inclined listeners was that Mendelssohn had no interest in what the scholar Peter Mercer-Taylor has called “unchecked personal self-expression.” Instead, his oratorios, choruses, glees, and parlor songs were intended to foster fellow-feeling and to serve as an aesthetic model for the upright life. In this, he succeeded triumphantly; there are still Mendelssohn Clubs—community choruses and singing societies—in cities across America. The challenge for contemporary performers is to tease out the complexity that dwells below a deceptively well-bred surface.
Read the rest of the article here. Illustration: Andrè Carrilho
Felix Mendelssohn was born 200 years ago Tuesday. Though he was one of the most beloved composers of the Romantic period, 270 of his works remained unpublished until recent years. These lost compositions are now coming to light through The Mendelssohn Project.
The rediscovery of his legacy, music, letters and artworks, the reintroduction of the music of his sister Fanny, the study of the life and times of the entire Mendelssohn family, and the reinstatement of Felix Mendelssohn's place in the pantheon of the greatest composers of all time, are the mission of The Mendelssohn Project.
It sounds like much of the Project is in the development stages, but if it accomplishes even half what is proposed it will be an incredible achievement. Viva Mendelssohn!
I am listening to WGBH All Classical Radio, which is streamed via this link. So far today all I've heard is Mendelssohn, including both the scherzo from the Octet and the Hebrides Overture. Hurrah!
Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), the composer that contemporary, Robert Schumann, called "the Mozart of the 19th century." It is perhaps not as highly publicized that Mendelssohn began composing music as a child, much as Mozart did, and was, also like Mozart, considered a child prodigy due to his virtuosic playing of the piano at an early age. The wonderfully varied Mendelssohn canon includes orchestral, choral, chamber, piano, and organ music, as well as songs for both solo voice and duet, and concertos for violin and piano.
Many thanks to Becky of Farm School for sending me a recent New York Times article about Mendelssohn. While quietly lamenting the fact that "composer anniversaries aren't what they used to be," the article goes on to list favorite Mendelssohn recordings of the classical music critics at the Times. (The online article at the Times website has many links worth checking out and a few selections of music to be heard.) Four of the five critics listed recordings of the Violin Concerto in E Minor (which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago), all played by different violinists, from an old Jascha Heifitz recording with the BSO through to Janine Jansen's 2007 recording with the Leipzig Guwandhaus Orchestra, and on to the even more recent 2008 recording of Daniel Hope with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Mendelssohn himself directed the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1835 until his death in 1847, with one year's hiatus from 1844 to 1845.
While I really enjoyed the lists of recordings and the mini-reviews that went along with them, I was especially glad to be reminded of two of Mendelssohn's instrumental works that made the critics' lists: the Octet in E-flat Major for Strings (1825), and the Hebrides Overture in B Minor (written 1830; revised 1832).
The Octet, written when Mendelssohn was just sixteen, is fun, fun, fun--both to play and listen to--and critic Vivien Schweitzer calls the lively last movement, "the ultimate antidepressant":
According to critic Allan Kozinn, a multi-tracked performance of the Octet by the Emerson String Quartet wins his favor with its "brisk, shapely high-energy performance." The four-cd set of all of Mendelssohn's quartets plus more chamber music, including the Octet, as performed by SUNY-Stony Brook's quartet-in-residence, is from 2005. The recordings are not available as mp3s from Amazon, but can be found on iTunes. The bonus tracks of the Octet found there are the separate recordings of the two halves of the octet (as played, twice, by the players in the quartet) that were put together for the final recording. On the enhanced (and more expensive) CDs available through Amazon, a video of the making of this recording is included.
My favorite movement of the four (Allegro moderato, ma con fuoco; Andante; Scherzo;and Presto), while hard to choose, is probably the Scherzo:
On to the Hebrides Overture. I love the mysterious opening of this piece, even if the bassoon, violas, and cellos get to have all the fun. Fortunately the rest of the orchestra gets to join in after a bit:
Mendelssohn was inspired to write both the Hebrides (or "Fingal's Cave," as it is sometimes called) Overture and his Symphony No. 3 in A Minor ("Scottish") by his many trips to Great Britain, made between 1829 and 1847.
Take some time to listen to some Mendelssohn today--I can't think of a better way to honor the birthday of a great composer.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, 2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn, and I expect to hear and hopefully perform a lot of his music this year. The chorus I rehearse with on Monday nights is singing three works by the composer in our March concert, and I like all three, but my favorite is Verleih' uns Frieden, written in 1831, which was about the middle of Mendelssohn's heyday of composing:
As you can probably guess just by listening to that last clip, Mendelssohn was a master of melody. You can also tell by listening to the opening bars of any of the three movements of his violin concerto. The first movement's clip (chosen for where in the music the clip originates) is played by Israeli violinist and former child prodigy, Maxim Vengerov, and the last two movements are played by the incomparable Joshua Bell:
Mendelssohn was from a family with a strict work ethic--his father made Felix and his three siblings (including his older sister Fanny, a brilliant though unknown pianist and also a prolific composer in her own right) learn music, French, English, Italian, Latin, Greek, math, history, geography, politics, art, and foreign literature, among other things. Makes what we try to get done at home seem almost laughable, somehow.
Anyway, I'll save other enjoyable Mendelssohn compositions for another day. But before I post, I must tell you all about the live, HD broadcasts of Metropolitan Opera performances--live from New York, selected operas are broadcast on movie theatre screens around the U.S. and internationally! Check here to see if one is coming to a theatre near you. I'm planning to go this Wednesday night to an encore performance of Massenet's Thaïs with Renee Fleming singing the title role. The next live performance is scheduled for this Saturday at 2 p.m. EST: Puccini's La Rondine.
It's not Music Monday today, but now that I've figured out that I can embed an Amazon widget in my post and not just on my sidebar, I'm planning to be a lot more vocal about the music I favor. I have just a little bit of a preference for classical music, and early music in particular, but that doesn't mean I won't have plenty to say about music from other genres!
2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn, so I expect to see and hear a lot of Mendelssohn's music performed next year. Other than the oratorio, Elijah, I didn't have a lot of familiarity with other choral works by the composer. My lack of knowledge is taking a swift turn for the better, however, as the community chorus I sing with will be performing not one, not two, but three of Mendelssohn's choral compositions in an early spring concert. Of these three works, particularly appropriate for the holiday season is the Magnificat in D, which the composer wrote when he was just thirteen.
I would have loved to have included a snippet of the Magnificat here, but it turns out that Amazon does not have an mp3 available of any of its sections, though I did find out that Wake Forest Public Radio will be presenting an American broadcast debut of the Magnificat, as sung by the Yale Schola Cantorum under the musical direction of Simon Carrington, formerly of the King's Singers and now professor of conducting at the Yale School of Music. I've already put it in my calendar to tune in online on the 28th at noon.
So instead, here is another, more well known tune by Mendelssohn. Enjoy!
“He never lost control of himself,” Wagner once said of Mendelssohn. The fundamental problem for so many Romantically inclined listeners was that Mendelssohn had no interest in what the scholar Peter Mercer-Taylor has called “unchecked personal self-expression.” Instead, his oratorios, choruses, glees, and parlor songs were intended to foster fellow-feeling and to serve as an aesthetic model for the upright life. In this, he succeeded triumphantly; there are still Mendelssohn Clubs—community choruses and singing societies—in cities across America. The challenge for contemporary performers is to tease out the complexity that dwells below a deceptively well-bred surface.
