The winds play an especially prominent role in this movement, with Mendelssohn treating them with a great degree of freedom that gives the movement a transparent, airy texture.
The movement is in sonata form, but it also uniquely includes a transitional passage between the exposition and its repeat whose material is developed later on. In the second movement, an Andante con moto in D minor, Mendelssohn recalls the impressive processions he had witnessed during his time in Rome. He evokes these with a dusky melody oboes, clarinets, and violas that unfolds over a plodding bass-line.
This alternates with two contrasting, relaxed, major-key sections. The flowing minuet Con moto moderato , with its legato writing for stings and winds, offers a musical equivalent of the symmetrical forms and restrained beauty of some of the architecture Mendelssohn saw during his Italian sojourn. The trio sounds vaguely militaristic, with its fanfare-like melodic figure for horns and bassoons.
In the finale, Mendelssohn uses another dance, the raucous Neapolitan saltarello , as the basis of the movement. Mendelssohn completed the Symphony March 13, in partial fulfillment of a commission from the Philharmonic Society of London. He conducted the premiere exactly two months later, on May 13, which was a great success — the work was repeated in June.
It was while tied to his lodgings that he received a generous hamper from Thomas Attwood, whom at that time he had never met. I have had a walk of two miles today and the air has really had a very salutary effect on me; in the three days that I have been here I can feel how much stronger and healthier I have become. At the time of this visit, Mendelssohn was 21 and Attwood Attwood lived there with his wife and daughter.
There is a musical composition by Mendelssohn entitled The Evening Bell. Mendelssohn wrote some Singspiels for family performance in his youth. It was produced in Berlin in , but coolly received. Mendelssohn left the theatre before the conclusion of the first performance, and subsequent performances were cancelled. Although he never abandoned the idea of composing a full opera, and considered many subjects — including that of the Nibelung saga later adapted by Wagner — he never wrote more than a few pages of sketches for any project.
At his death Mendelssohn left some sketches for an opera on the story of the Lorelei. The Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. In addition, there are several single-movement works for soloist and orchestra. Those for piano are the Rondo Brillante , Op. In particular, his String Quartet No. Other mature works include two other string quintets; sonatas for the clarinet, cello, viola and violin; and two piano trios.
For the Piano Trio No. Strikingly different is the more overtly romantic Die erste Walpurgisnacht The First Walpurgis Night , a setting for chorus and orchestra of a ballad by Goethe describing pagan rituals of the Druids in the Harz mountains in the early days of Christianity. Mendelssohn also wrote many smaller-scale sacred works for unaccompanied choir and for choir with organ.
Most are written in or translated into English, and remain highly popular. The piece is written for full choir, organ, and a treble or soprano soloist who has many challenging and extended solo passages. As such, it is a particular favourite for choirboys in churches and cathedrals and has frequently been recorded as a treble solo.
The Herald Angels Sing. This extract from an originally secular s composition, which Mendelssohn felt unsuited to sacred music, is ubiquitous at Christmas. Mendelssohn wrote many songs, both for solo voice and for duet, with piano. Many of these are simple, or slightly modified, strophic settings.
Other composers who were inspired to produce similar pieces of their own, included Charles-Valentin Alkan his five sets of Chants , each ending with a barcarole , Anton Rubinstein, Ignaz Moscheles, and Edvard Grieg. Mendelssohn played the organ and composed for it from the age of 11 to his death. His primary organ works are the Three Preludes and Fugues , Op. Mendelssohn was renowned during his lifetime as a keyboard performer, both on the piano and on the organ.
One of his obituarists noted:. First and chiefest we esteem his pianoforte-playing, with its amazing elasticity of touch, rapidity, and power; next his scientific and vigorous organ playing […] his triumphs on these instruments are fresh in public recollection. In his concerts and recitals Mendelssohn performed both his own works and those of his predecessor German composers, notably works of Weber, Beethoven and on the organ J.
Both in private and public performances, Mendelssohn was also renowned for his improvisations. On one occasion in London, when asked by the soprano Maria Malibran after a recital to extemporise, he created a piece which included the melodies of all the songs she had sung.
Mendelssohn was a noted conductor, both of his own works and of other composers. At his London debut in , he was noted for his innovatory use of a baton then a great novelty. But his novelty also extended to taking great care over tempo, dynamics and the orchestral players themselves — both rebuking them when they were recalcitrant and praising them when they satisfied him. One critic who was not impressed however was Richard Wagner; he accused Mendelssohn of using tempos in his performances of Beethoven symphonies that were far too fast.
He was concerned in preparing and editing such music, whether for performance or for publication, to be as close as possible to the original intentions of the composers, including wherever possible a close study of early editions and manuscripts.
Although Mendelssohn attributed great importance to musical education, and made a substantial commitment to the Conservatoire he founded in Leipzig, he did not greatly enjoy teaching and undertook only a very few private pupils; these he took only if he believed they had notable qualities or potential.
Amongst such students were composer William Sterndale Bennett, the pianist Camille-Marie Stamaty, the violinist and composer Julius Eichberg, and Walther von Goethe grandson of the poet. At the Leipzig Conservatoire Mendelssohn taught classes in composition and ensemble playing.
However, the conservative strain in Mendelssohn, which set him apart from some of his more flamboyant contemporaries, bred a corollary condescension amongst some of them toward his music.
Such criticism of Mendelssohn for his very ability — which could be characterised negatively as facility — was taken to further lengths by Richard Wagner. At any rate, the whole music of romanticism [e. Schumann and Wagner] … was second-rate music from the very start, and real musicians took little notice of it. Things were different with Felix Mendelssohn, that halcyon master who, thanks to his easier, purer, happier soul, was quickly honored and just as quickly forgotten, as a lovely incident in German music.
Carl Orff obliged. The monument dedicated to Mendelssohn erected in Leipzig in was removed by the Nazis in A replacement was erected in Prince Albert inscribed in German , a libretto for the oratorio Elijah in To the noble artist who, surrounded by the Baal-worship of false art, has been able, like a second Elijah, through genius and study, to remain true to the service of true art.
In an adulatory novel by the teenaged Sarah Sheppard was published, entitled Charles Auchester. In Queen Victoria requested that the Crystal Palace include a statue of Mendelssohn when it was rebuilt. As the critic H. Skip to main content. Romantic Period. Search for:. Mendelssohn: Biography. Licenses and Attributions. CC licensed content, Shared previously.
0コメント