|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| Felix Mendelssohn |
|
| 1809-1847 |
|
|
Felix Mendelssohn
Overture to Die schöne Melusine (The
Fair Melusine), Op. 32
If ever there was a composer who did not fit the romantic picture
of the struggling artist, unsure of where his next meal was coming
from as he fought for acceptance of his new ideas, it was Felix
Mendelssohn. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth and raised
in affluence, he enjoyed encouragement and the nurturing of his
precocious musical talent. His culturally sophisticated family
was unusually enlightened in its support of his artistic aspirations – many
other composers well into the twentieth century had to rebel
and escape parents who wanted them to become doctors. The Mendelssohn
household was a Mecca for the intellectual elite of Germany,
and the many family visitors fawned over the prodigy and his
talented sister Fanny. Fortunately for the development of his
rare abilities, his carefully selected teachers were demanding
and strict.
The fair Melusine, who leaves her lover Raimond de Poitou after
he has spied on her bathing and is transformed into a mermaid,
is the subject of a medieval legend with traditional illustrations
of a Melusine with a double tail. The Austrian dramatist and
poet Franz Grillparzer used the legend as the basis for a libretto,
which he initially offered to Beethoven, who rejected it. After
Beethoven's death Conradin Kreutzer, a minor Austrian composer
took it up for his opera Melusine
Mendelssohn attended Melusine in Berlin during the spring of
1833 and while he liked the subject he disliked the music intensely,
especially the overture. Resolving he could do better, he composed
his own overture, in which he utilized his talent for musical
seascapes expressed in his two previous overtures, Calm Sea
and Prosperous Voyage (1828) and The Hebrides Overture (1830).
Like most concert overtures of the period, this one is written
in sonata allegro form
as if it were a symphonic first movement. While it has no specific
program, the melodies suggest aspects of the story. The theme that
opens and closes the Overture has a folk ballad quality,  while
the lilting, sinuous accompaniment was adapted by Richard Wagner
in the prelude to Das Rheingold to depict the flow of the Rhine. In
contrast is a dark, passionate theme portending the tragic denouement. A
third melody, resembling a cry, recalls the prelude to the storm
in the Hebrides Overture. Mendelssohn
gave this new work the convoluted title Konzert-Overtüre
zum Märchen von der schönen Melusine (Concert overture
to the fairy tale of the fair Melusine).
Mendelssohn was the acknowledged master of the concert overture.
His overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, composed
when he was just 16, was immediately recognized as a groundbreaking
work of genius and was featured on concert programs conducted
by Mendelssohn throughout his life. This and his subsequent concert
overtures are prototypes of the symphonic poems of Franz Liszt.
Mendelssohn’s attempts at opera, however, met with considerably
less success. Youthful works written to entertain his family
soirées were never performed in public, and he left behind
several incomplete attempts.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
| Ludwig van Beethoven |
|
| 1770-1827 |
|
|
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 3 in c Minor, Op. 37
Although the autograph of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in
c minor is dated 1800, sketches date back to as early as 1796,
and the composer made revisions up to the date of publication.
The premiere took place at an Akademie (benefit concert) of Beethoven’s
works in April 1803, together with that of the Second Symphony
and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives.
Even at the premiere the manuscript had not been finalized. Beethoven
was the soloist and asked his friend, the young conductor Ignaz
von Seyfried, to turn pages for him. Seyfried later wrote: “...but
heaven help me! – that was easier said than done. I saw
almost nothing but empty pages; at the most, on one page or another
a few Egyptian hieroglyphs wholly unintelligible to me were scribbled
down to serve as a clue for him; for he played almost all of
the solo parts from memory since, as was so often the case, he
had not had the time to set it all down on paper.” The
Concerto was finally published in 1804.
The key of the Concerto, c minor, is also that of the Fifth Symphony
and of the last Piano Sonata and has been considered to be Beethoven’s Sturm
und Drang (storm and stress) key. This literary and musical
movement, whose heyday occurred during Beethoven’s early
childhood, reflected the revolutionary attitudes and stormy emotions
of the time. But for Beethoven emotional upheaval was a personal
constant throughout his life.
The Concerto’s first movement opens with a powerful statement
of one of the composer’s deceptively simple musical ideas:
a rumination on a triad, first as an arpeggio,
then filled in with a descending scale. The
contrast with the second theme, a graceful melody with expressive
leaps and appoggiaturas, is, therefore, all the greater. In
this concerto Beethoven still adhered strictly to the tradition
of the classical concerto, in which a long orchestral introduction
precedes the entrance of the soloist; in the last two piano concertos,
the soloist plunges in from the start. At a later date, probably
in 1809, Beethoven wrote a cadenza for the movement for his patron
and pupil Archduke Rudolf. There is an unusual and mysterious
transition at the end of the cadenza back to the orchestra.
The gentle largo second movement is in sharp contrast to the
first, a contrast accentuated by the surprisingly distant key
of E Major. It
contains a lovely dialogue between flute and bassoon, accompanied
by the pizzicato strings and piano arpeggios. The
Concerto ends with a Rondo and
an unusual coda that suddenly takes off with a transformation
of the main theme in
triple meter, ending in C major. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
| Robert Schumann |
|
| 1810-1856 |
|
|
Robert Schumann
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 97
In September 1850 Robert Schumann moved to Düsseldorf to
take up his new position as the city’s municipal music
director. It was the first time he had lived near the Rhine,
the cradle of German legend and poetry. In the turmoil created
by the move, his creative frenzy – the manic half of his
bipolar personality – proved phenomenal, and before the
end of the year he had composed the Cello Concerto and the Third
Symphony, written between November 2 and December 9.
The Third is by far the most programmatic of Schumann’s
symphonies. Delighted by the potential his new position and by
the outgoing nature of the people, he wrote the symphony in homage
to his new home. He took two side-trips to Cologne and visited
its famous cathedral, at that time still unfinished after 620
years of intermitted construction. He was awed by the majesty
of the building - a supreme Gothic masterpiece- and, to celebrate
the installation of a new cardinal, added an extra movement (the
fourth) to the Symphony, originally designating it “In
the character of a procession for a solemn ceremony.” He
later removed the subtitle.
The Symphony is extremely accessible, with clear-cut singable
melodies. Schumann, one of the most prominent and outspoken aestheticians
of the Romantic era, deliberately focused on striking a balance
between giving this work popular appeal without sacrificing the
dictates of high art.
The Third Symphony is the only one of Schumann’s symphonies
without a slow introduction. It opens with a lively, sweeping
theme. The
second theme, while different in mood is also long. The
exuberant mood reflects the composer’s pleasure at his
new surroundings. This theme, imitating the flow of the river
may, in fact, have influenced Wagner, whose Leitmotif representing
the Rhine in The Ring is in the same expansive mood and 6/8 meter.
The easy-going Scherzo opens
with the cellos in the rhythm of the Ländler, the
peasant forerunner of the waltz; it
was originally subtitled “Morning on the Rhine.” The Trio features
the horns.
The third movement is really the "extra" one for a structure
that usually at this time comprised four movements only. It is
a charming intermezzo. After
the main theme, Schumann goes on to state another one, which
he develops more fully and whose first notes are a recurring
rhythmic pattern. This
movement represents one of the places where Schumann straddles
the fence between popular and high art, using subtle shifting
rhythms within accessible tunes. The following movement, however,
leaves the masses behind, substituting awe with artistic popularism.
The scoring of the Symphony includes three trombones, but these
are silent for the first three movements. They burst upon the
scene suddenly in the fourth movement to maximum effect, introducing
the majestic theme in,
as Schumann called it, the so-called “cathedral” movement,
referring both to the composer's visit to the Cologne Cathedral
and to the solemn contrapuntal style
of the sixteenth century. Schumann introduces the principal theme
as a fugue for the trombones and horns, the pianissimo pizzicato
basses beating time in the slow "processional." Schumann
develops the theme with all the contrapuntal flourishes, as in
this example where the theme is presented in diminution (short
note values) against the theme in its original form – most
certainly a nod to one of his idols, J. S. Bach.
In the fifth movement, we are back outside in the sunny Rhineland.
Schumann unleashes a volley of short tunes. & & Before
the end, he take one more crack at the theme of the fourth movement,
here transformed into the major mode, speeded up – but
still contrapuntal. |
|
|
|
|
|
