Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809 –
1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was
a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of
the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions
include symphonies, concertos, piano music, organ music
and chamber music. His best-known works include the
overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's
Dream (which includes his "Wedding March"), the Italian
Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the oratorio St. Paul,
the oratorio...(+)
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809 –
1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was
a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of
the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions
include symphonies, concertos, piano music, organ music
and chamber music. His best-known works include the
overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's
Dream (which includes his "Wedding March"), the Italian
Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the oratorio St. Paul,
the oratorio Elijah, the overture The Hebrides, the
mature Violin Concerto and the String Octet. The melody
for the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
is also his. Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words are his
most famous solo piano compositions.
Mendelssohn's grandfather was the renowned Jewish
philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, but Felix was initially
raised without religion. He was baptised at the age of
seven, becoming a Reformed Christian. He was recognised
early as a musical prodigy, but his parents were
cautious and did not seek to capitalise on his talent.
His sister Fanny Mendelssohn received a similar musical
education and was a talented composer and pianist in
her own right; some of her early songs were published
under her brother's name and her Easter Sonata was for
a time mistakenly attributed to him after being lost
and rediscovered in the 1970s.
Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany, and
revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach,
notably with his performance of the St Matthew Passion
in 1829. He became well received in his travels
throughout Europe as a composer, conductor and soloist;
his ten visits to Britain – during which many of his
major works were premiered – form an important part
of his adult career. His essentially conservative
musical tastes set him apart from more adventurous
musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard
Wagner, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Hector Berlioz. The
Leipzig Conservatory,[n 3] which he founded, became a
bastion of this anti-radical outlook. After a long
period of relative denigration due to changing musical
tastes and antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, his creative originality has been
re-evaluated. He is now among the most popular
composers of the Romantic era.
While returning to London from his Scottish sojourn in
1829, Mendelssohn made an excursion to northern Wales,
where he visited the family of John Taylor
(1779–1863), an English mining engineer who owned a
summer residence in Flintshire. (Taylor’s sister,
Sarah Austin, was a member of the circle of Jeremy
Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and a productive author
and translator of German literature.) Playing the
English gentleman, Mendelssohn enjoyed hunting, reading
Sir Walter Scott, visiting one of Taylor’s mines, and
flirting with his three daughters, for whom the
composer produced the Trois fantaisies ou caprices, Op
16. For Anne, he joined a pensive Andante con moto in A
minor, with traces of his Scottish style, to a
spirited, A major Allegro vivace meant to capture
bouquets of Anne’s favourite roses and carnations,
with ascending arpeggiations to suggest the wafting
scent. Floral imagery also informed the second caprice,
for Honora. This E minor Scherzo is propelled by crisp
fanfares and light staccato work to represent a
creeping vine with trumpet-shaped flowers. And the
third caprice, for Susan, whom Mendelssohn described as
the ‘prettiest’, gently traced the course of a
meandering rivulet that the two encountered during one
of their walks.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Mendelssohn).
Although originally composed for Solo Piano, I created
this Interpretation of the Scherzo in E Minor from 3
Fantaisies (Op. 16 No. 2) for String Quartet (2
Violins, Viola & Cello).
PARTITION