Far from the troubled, coarse libertine that has become
an archetype of the Romantic composer, Felix
Mendelssohn was something of an anomaly among his
contemporaries. His own situation -- one largely of
domestic tranquility and unhindered career fulfillment
-- stands in stark contrast to the personal Sturm und
Drang familiar to his peers. Mendelssohn was the only
musical prodigy of the 19th century whose stature could
rival that of Mozart. Still, his parents resisted any
entrepreneurial impulses...(+)
Far from the troubled, coarse libertine that has become
an archetype of the Romantic composer, Felix
Mendelssohn was something of an anomaly among his
contemporaries. His own situation -- one largely of
domestic tranquility and unhindered career fulfillment
-- stands in stark contrast to the personal Sturm und
Drang familiar to his peers. Mendelssohn was the only
musical prodigy of the 19th century whose stature could
rival that of Mozart. Still, his parents resisted any
entrepreneurial impulses and spared young Felix the
strange, grueling lifestyle that was the lot of many
child prodigies. He and his sister Fanny were given
piano lessons, and he also studied violin, and both
joined the Berlin Singakademie.
The eminent German musicologist and Lieder scholar Karl
Schumann once famously described Mendelssohn's Lieder
ohne Worte (Songs without words) as not simply "Pillars
of the piano repertoire," but rather as "a household
possession, as widespread in Germany as the Grimm
brothers' fairy tales, Ludwig Richter's pictures, or
Uhland's poetry ... and no less beloved in Victorian
England." But these works were an absolutely typical
Germanic reaction to the world of Romantic miniaturism,
and especially, the growing interest among composers to
encapsulate the mood of the moment in a keyboard
gem.
While it has become fashionable in critical circles to
denigrate Mendelssohn's fragile sensibilities as little
more than the manifestation of a kind of upper-class
dilettantism, in his own way, he was actually far ahead
of the field when it came to recognizing the future
direction that music, especially the keyboard
miniature, would take. In this regard, Mendelssohn
anticipated the new expressive directions to be pursued
by Schumann (whose wife, Clara, did much to popularize
the Songs in the concert hall) and Liszt.
Of the six Lieder ohne Worte of the fifth volume, Op.
62, no fewer than three pieces were given descriptive
titles. Interestingly, Goethe (along with von Schiller
the central figure of the German Romantic literary
movement) had written "music begins where words end."
No doubt, however, he would have been among the first
to agree that the sombre mood of Op. 62 No. 3 in E
minor "Trauermarsch" (Funeral March) needs no semantic
prop to convey its sorrowful message. No. 5 in A minor
is one of three Lieder to have the title
"Venezianisches Gondollied" (Venetian Gondola
Song).
The concluding Lied ohne Worte of the Op. 62 group is
one of the most famous of all piano miniatures. This is
the A major "Frühlingslied" or "Spring Song." The
remaining untitled pieces are Op. 62 No. 1 in G
(Andante espressivo), No. 2 in B flat (Allegro con
fuoco), and No. 4 in G (Allegro con anima). Finally,
while these beguiling, some would say simplistic,
pieces have sometimes been slighted as representative
of the worst kind of Romantic kitsch, the critic Joan
Chissell rightly reminds us that "without all these
pieces, how much poorer our understanding would have
been of the impressionable heart behind the
master-craftsman's façade."
Although originally composed for Piano, I created this
Interpretation of the "Funeral March" from "Lieder ohne
Worte" (Op. 62 No. 3) for Flute & Strings (2 Violins,
Viola & Cello).
PARTITION