Overture Magazine 2019-20 BSO_Overture_Mar_Apr_final | Page 27

MOZART AND MENDELSSOHN
woman—especially one from a wealthy
and prominent family—exercising her
talents in the public eye. As their father told
her at age 15: “Music will perhaps become
his profession, while for you it can and must
be only an ornament.”
Fanny showed prodigious ability as a
pianist; by the age of 13, she was able to play
Bach’s complete Well-Tempered Clavier from
memory. The esteemed pedagogue Carl
Friedrich Zelter, who taught both Fanny
and Felix as children, initially thought
she possessed the superior talent. Like her
brother, she turned to composing and
eventually wrote some 450 pieces, mostly
piano works and songs. However, only late
in her life, did she dare to begin publishing
them, and much of her reluctance was due to
her brother’s pressure against it.
Though the two siblings were
extraordinarily close — Felix always
consulted Fanny about his compositions
and her death of a stroke at age 42 so
devastated him that it may have hastened
his own death at 38 six months later—
he took nearly as conservative a stance
as their father. In contrast to Fanny’s
husband, the artist Wilhelm Henzel, who
encouraged her composing, Felix was
generally discouraging, writing: “From
my knowledge of Fanny, I should say that
she has neither inclination nor vocation
for authorship. She is too much all that a
woman ought to be for this. She regulates
her house…Publishing would only disturb
her in these [duties], and I cannot say that I
approve of it.” Nevertheless, Felix, with her
agreement, published some of Fanny’s songs
under his name.
We’ll hear her only existing work for
orchestra alone, the Concerto in C Major
written around 1830 when she was 25.
It opens with a beautifully colored slow
introduction featuring a dialogue between
strings and woodwinds over sustained horns.
An exuberant flourish from the violins
launches the sonata form itself: a fiery Allegro
di molto with an intense, galloping principal
theme and graceful contrasting lyrical
melody. This Overture possesses many of the
qualities that made Felix’s overtures classics
of the repertoire, and if it were under his
name, it would undoubtedly be getting far
more performances.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two
trumpets, timpani and strings.
SYMPHONY NO. 4 IN A MAJOR, “ITALIAN”
Felix Mendelssohn
Born in Hamburg, Germany, February 3, 1809;
died in Leipzig, Germany, November 4, 1847
“This is Italy! And now has begun what I
have always thought…to be the supreme
joy in life. And I am loving it. Today was
so rich that now, in the evening, I must
collect myself a little, and so I am writing
to you to thank you, dear parents, for
having given me all this happiness…”
Thus the 21-year-old Felix Mendelssohn
wrote his family on October 10, 1830
after arriving in Venice. He did well to
remember to thank his parents, for it
was their wealth that made possible this
second installment of his Grand Tour
of Europe. The previous year had taken
him to the British Isles and sown the
seeds for his “Scottish” Symphony. His
journeys to Venice, Florence, Rome and
Naples from October 1830 to July 1831
would inspire his other most popular
symphony, the “Italian.”
The young composer threw himself
into his Italian experience with gusto:
not only making dutiful pilgrimages
to all the great museums and churches
but also reveling in Rome’s pre-Lenten
carnival season and taking long hikes
in the countryside. Soon he began work
on a new symphony inspired by this
captivating land. But possessed with good
looks and a charming personality, he
made little progress on it; as he confessed
in another letter home, he had so many
calling cards stuck in his mirror he need
never spend an evening alone.
After returning home, however, the
“Italian” Symphony began to take shape
during the winter of 1832, spurred on
by a commission from the London
Philharmonic Society. But despite its
air of spontaneity and effortlessness, it
cost Mendelssohn a great deal of sweat.
Even after its successful premiere by
the London Philharmonic on May 13,
1833 under his baton, he continued to
anguish over it. Ultimately, it was not
published until after his death at 38.
Mendelssohn left behind instructions
for its improvement, but fortunately—
since many consider the “Italian” to be
a perfectly crafted symphony—nobody
has ever implemented them.
The “Italian” has one of the easiest to
remember openings in the symphonic
canon: an irresistible musical expression of
youthful high spirits and sheer joy. Clarity
and lightness mark the orchestration of one
of Mendelssohn’s finest scores, in which
exactly the right color mixture is found
for each mood. A rhythmically vigorous
new tune delays its appearance until the
development section where it becomes
the subject of a lively string fugue —
Mendelssohn certainly had not worshipped
Bach in vain!
The second movement is a masterpiece
of atmosphere and scene painting. It was
apparently inspired by a religious procession
Mendelssohn witnessed in Naples, and the
constant “walking bass” line carries the
processional feeling. Above it, the haunting
timbres of oboes, bassoons and violas
introduce a grave and lovely melody. At
midpoint, clarinets offer a flowing, heartfelt
new theme. Throughout, a wailing motive
suggests the cries of the pilgrims. The
procession gradually fades into the distance.
Instead of following Beethoven’s pattern
of an earthy scherzo third movement,
Mendelssohn harkens back to an earlier age
for a very Classical minuet. But the string
writing is more lush and the sentiment
stronger than in Mozart’s minuets, and the
trio section has a warm nobility.
The spirit of the Roman carnival returns
in the vivacious finale, based on the Italian
leaping dance the saltarello. In an unusual
choice, this is a minor-mode conclusion to a
work that began in major. But Mendelssohn
had the knack for writing very light-hearted
music in minor keys. High spirits and
nonstop energy propel this dance to its
whirling conclusion.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two
trumpets, timpani and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 2020

M A R – A P R 2020 / OV E R T U R E
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