220a 2009 week 7.heikel-libre

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847) �

Pianist & Organist �

Conductor�

Composer �

• child prodigy�• championed the works of Bach �

• Leipzig Gwandhaus Orchestra�• historical performances, (St. Matthew Passion)�

• child prodigy�• studied under Carl Zelter �

© Julie Anne Heikel 2009�

Early Years and Training �

– early piano lessons with mother �

– travelled Europe performing and composing �

• 1819 Berlin Singakademie performed his setting of Psalm 19� • his Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream, op. 21 was written at age 17�

– both Felix and Fanny took composition lessons from Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin �

- lessons with Zelter account for much of

Mendelssohn’s historicism and heavily influenced his future career �


Major Works�Orchestral Works�

• string symphonies�• five Symphonies for full orchestra including the Italian, Scottish, and Reformation�• Concert Overture including The Hebrides and A Midsummer Night’s Dream�

• Violin Concerto in E minor, op. 64�

Chamber Works�

• Octet op. 20 (written same year as

Midsummer Night’s Dream, age 17) �• piano trios, string quartets, string quintets �–early ones in the style of Beethoven–�

Piano Works�

• 48 Lieder ohne Worte� (Songs Without Words)� published in 8 columes �

• piano sonatas, � various miniatures�

Vocal Works �

• Oratorios: Paulus and Elijah�• lieder for both solo voice and piano or duo and piano �


Mendelssohn’s Musical Lineage�

Johann Sebastian Bach�

C. P. E. Bach �

Kirnberger �

Fasch�

Carl F. Zelter �(Composition Teacher)�

Felix Mendelssohn �

Daniel Itzig�

Bella Itzig�

Lea Itzig�(Mother) �

W. F. Bach �

Sara Itzig Levy �(Great Aunt) �

Important Collector of 18th C. Music�

Berlin Singakademie �(of which Zelter was

the conductor)�


Mendelssohn led the choir and orchestra of the Berlin Singakademie

in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion� on March 11, 1829. �

This was first performance of the work since Bach’s death in 1750 — 100 years after it was first performed. �

One thousand people were turned away from the first performance! Second and third performances followed shortly thereafter. �

WHY WAS IT SO POPULAR?�

– the orchestra was popular�– it was the “Easter season” �

– chorale music was and important part of German Nationalism�


The Chorale as German Nationalist Music�

“Take hordes of people, take them by hundreds, by thousands, bring them into human interaction, and interaction where each is at liberty to express his personality in feelings and words, where he receives at the same time like-minded impressions from all the others, where he becomes aware in the most intuitive and multifarious way possible of his human self-sufficiency and camaraderie, where he radiates and breathes love, instantly, with every breath — and can this be anything other than choral singing?’�

Hans Georg Nägeli ~ swiss educator�

leader of the Leiderkranz singing-society movement�

St. Basil: �“A psalm forms friendships, unites those separated, conciliates those at enmity . . . So that psalmody, bring about choral singing, a bond, as it were, toward unity, joins the people into a harmonious union of one choir.”�

According to Taruskin: �

‘the “I” finding fulfillment in the “We”’ �


The Chorale as German Nationalist Music�

Mendelssohn’s revival of the St. Matthew Passion played a large role in reinstating German choral music, the Lutheran chorale, and the larger scale works that used them (Passion or Oratorio) to the concert halls for a German artist that was looking for a National musical identity.�

The appropriation of the chorale into the concert hall meant that all Germans — whether Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish — could call the chorale their own. With the St. Matthew revival Bach became public property again. The chorale likewise became common property of the German people. �


Bach’s �St. Matthew Passion �

Mendelssohn’s�St. Paul�

• composed 1727 �

• for orchestra, double chorus, and soloists�

• New Testament biblical theme �

• numbers for chorus: include turba style numbers (more action: like a Greek chorus) and chorales (many)�

• fugal orchestral overture that leads into chorus number�

• composed 1836 �

• for orchestra, chorus, and soloists�

• New Testament biblical theme �

• numbers for chorus: include turba style numbers (more action: like a Greek chorus) and chorales (five instances)�

• orchestral French overture that uses chorale theme as its main thematic material �

(Wachet auf! Ruft uns die Stimme ) �© Julie Anne Heikel 2009�

Differences?�

• Orchestration — Mendelssohn made use of the Romantic orchestra.�

• Each instance of the chorale in Bach’s St. Matthew is a straightforward four-part chorale setting. �

Of Mendelssohn’s five chorales, All ein Gott […] (No. 3) in St. Paul is the only one that conforms to Bach’s church style. �

No. 16 is the vocal reprise of Wachet auf. By bringing the same chorale tune back more than once in the work, Mendelssohn is emulating both Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions (both who use the reoccurring chorale tunes) �


MENDELSSOHN�


Carl Friedrich Zelter criticized Mendelssohn as being “too eager to follow Bach’s ideals of church music writing rather than keeping up with the current styles and genres.” �

Mendelssohn responded to his teacher in the following manner: “You seemed to be worried in your last letter that I, because of my love for one of the great masters, write so much church music in order to imitate him. However, that is surely not the case. … No one ought to keep me from enjoying and continuing with what the great masters left behind for me. Nobody should have to start from the beginning once again, but rather, one has to continue according to one’s own power, and not just create deadly repeats of what has already been done.” �

Mendelssohn in a letter to Eduard Devrient: “If it has similarity to [Johann] Sebastian Bach, again, I cannot do anything about it, for I wrote it just according to the mood I was in, and even if the words put me in a mood similar to that of old Bach, so much the better. I am sure you do not think that I would merely copy his forms, without the content; if it were so, I should feel such distaste, and such emptiness, that I could never again finish a piece.” �


220a 2009 week 7.heikel-libre

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