Mendelssohn and his circle
Even at a distance of over 150 years, we can still sense the energy that Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy brought to German musical life. As a boy he was already so full of ideas and projects that he would run through the streets, never wanting to waste a moment dawdling. As an adult composer he worked with punishing discipline, refusing to be content with his pieces and revising them ceaselessly. He also pursued an international career as a conductor, directing orchestras in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Leipzig, as well as making frequent tours to England. He was a pioneer in the revival of Baroque music, devising ‘historical concerts’ that included pieces from several periods; he also conducted the first modern performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Alongside all this musical activity, Mendelssohn also found time to paint and sketch; and wherever he was, no matter how busy, he would always write long letters to his friends and family.
Mendelssohn was a bright star of the musical world, but he surrounded himself with many other luminaries. He came from a distinguished line of German Jewish intellectuals, and he retained many friends in academic circles. His incandescent talents aroused admiration and friendship from the elite of Europe, including Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. And his musical circle ranged widely, including performers such as Ferdinand David, Ignaz Moscheles and Julius Rietz, as well as the foremost composers of Europe.
Tonight’s concert puts Mendelssohn alongside the composers who were his close friends. There is Carl Maria von Weber, who was a role-model for the adolescent Felix in Berlin. Then there are two men with whom Mendelssohn worked during his years as director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Niels Wilhelm Gade was a Danish protégé of Mendelssohn who came to Leipzig to assist his mentor and eventually succeeded him as director of the Gewandhaus in 1847. And Robert Schumann was Mendelssohn’s musical equal in Leipzig, if never enjoying such immediate success in his lifetime.
Felix Mendelssohn, Trumpet Overture Op.101
Unlike most of Mendelssohn’s overtures, the Trumpet Overture does not paint
a poetic or dramatic scene. Instead it takes its title from the
trumpet-calls that open the piece and then regularly punctuate its bright
and crisp orchestral writing. Mendelssohn wrote the piece in 1826 and
performed it initially at Sunday performances at his family’s home.
Characteristically he was dissatisfied with it and revised it heavily, diluting the contrapuntal passages that seemed excessively academic. Despite the revisions, he continued to regard the piece as unworthy of publication. That opinion, however, was not shared by his family: Mendelssohn’s father was so fond of the overture that he said he would like to hear it in his dying hour. Tonight we hear Mendelssohn’s second version, in the premiere of Christopher Hogwood’s critical edition of the overture.
Niels Wilhelm Gade, Symphony No.4 in B flat major Op.20
As Mendelssohn’s fame increased, he attracted his share of admirers and
disciples. In the 1840s he also cultivated a protégé, the young Danish
musician Niels Wilhelm Gade. Mendelssohn first encountered Gade’s music in
1840 when he was invited to judge a composition competition in Copenhagen.
Gade’s entry, a concert-overture modelled closely on The Hebrides, was the
resounding winner. Later Mendelssohn performed Gade’s Symphony No.1 in
Leipzig, where it was received with great enthusiasm. ‘No work,’ said
Mendelssohn, ‘has made a more vivacious, lovely impression on me in quite a
long time.’ Gade was then invited to Leipzig to assist at the Gewandhaus,
and in 1847 he became its director on Mendelssohn’s death. A year later,
however, war broke out between Denmark and Germany, and Gade decided to
return to his homeland.
Gade’s Symphony No.4 (1850) dates from his return to Copenhagen. Like the symphonies of his mentor, it is classical in form. But within those neat and symmetrical structures, Gade has a liking for skittish or swaying themes, as heard in the last two movements. Also prominent are the horn-calls of the first movement. For Gade’s audiences, such horn-calls evoked open spaces and perhaps the Nordic horizons of his homeland.
Carl Maria von Weber, Clarinet concerto No.2 in E flat major Op.74
Carl Maria von Weber belonged to the generation before Mendelssohn and his
music was a formative influence on the adolescent Felix. As a child
Mendelssohn had received a rigorous grounding in counterpoint from Carl
Friedrich Zelter; then as a teenager, the music of Beethoven and Weber
offered an exciting glimpse of more modern and daring styles. During the
1820s in Berlin, the young Mendelssohn idolised Weber. He would recognise
Weber in the street and run over to say hello. He offered childish acts of
reverence, refusing to share a carriage with Weber and instead running
ahead so that he could open the door for the great man. Mendelssohn also
sat in on Weber’s rehearsals at the Berlin opera house and later said that
he had here learned many of his conducting techniques, although he chose
not to imitate Weber’s ‘charming rudeness’ and his ‘exaggerated wavering in
tempo’.
Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No.2 dates from 1811, a much earlier period in his life. It is one of several pieces he wrote that year for the virtuoso clarinettist Heinrich Baermann, who greatly impressed Weber with his technique. The key of E flat major arouses a grand style from Weber, particularly in the regal opening of the first movement. The second theme of the movement, however, is perkier; and the dance-like mood returns in the finale, which is a polka full of spirited syncopation.
Robert Schumann, Symphony No.4 in D minor Op.120
Mendelssohn’s time in Leipzig coincided with Robert Schumann’s most
productive period as a composer, performer and critic. But Schumann never
enjoyed Mendelssohn’s immense success and remained on the edge of the
city’s musical life. He was something of a loner, often locked in a
struggle with his own inner demons. Mendelssohn thought him ‘rather quiet
and turned-in upon himself, but extremely talented and a very good man at
heart’. At times Schumann may have felt jealous at Mendelssohn’s seemingly
effortless triumphs, but in public he praised his colleague warmly. His
first impression of Mendelssohn was ‘of an unforgettable human being’, and
later he offered appreciative reviews of Mendelssohn’s new compositions.
Schumann’s Symphony No.4 offers an immensely original solution to a perennial compositional problem: how to create a coherent piece without having to repeat themes frequently? Here Schumann telescopes the four movements of a usual symphony into a one-movement fantasy. Rather than ending each movement with the customary recapitulation of themes, Schumann instead breaks in with fresh ideas. But these new ideas are always derived from those that have gone before, so the sense of the new is mingled with feelings of familiarity. Particularly important is a sweeping lyrical theme that introduces the key of D major halfway through the first movement; there is a similar glorious transfiguration into the major for the finale.
The symphony was ahead of its time: the première received mixed reviews and Schumann was unable to find the piece a publisher. It lay in his bottom drawer until 1851, when he thickened the orchestration to give an air of solemnity to the D minor passages. Only in 1891 was the first version published, on the initiative of Johannes Brahms. Brahms considered the revised piece to be ‘overdressed’ and he preferred the ‘beautiful, free and graceful motion’ of the original. In publishing the first version, he sacrificed his lifelong friendship with Clara Schumann, who steadfastly defended her husband’s later intentions. But the first version, as we hear tonight, is an airy, economical and evocative piece; it is a testament to the creativity that was flowing in Mendelssohn’s circle of the 1840s.