Mendelssohn: A Life in Music

by Todd, R. Larry

  Ex. 3.10a: Mozart, Piano Sonata in C minor (K. 457, 1784), First Movement

  Ex. 3.10b: Mendelssohn, Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 1 (1822), First Movement

  Ex. 3.11a: Mozart, Piano Sonata in C minor (K. 457, 1784), Finale

  Ex. 3.11b: Mendelssohn, Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 1 (1822), Finale

  No work of Mozart stimulated Felix as profoundly as the finale of the Jupiter Symphony, with its ne plus ultra synthesis of fugal counterpoint and sonata form. Felix’s full engagement with the work occurred in November and December 1822, when, attracted by the intricate combinations of the finale, he composed the eighth String Sinfonia in D major. Dispatching it in three weeks, he immediately rescored it for a classical orchestra with double winds and gave the composition a sonorous luster that further enhanced its relationship to the model. The revised version, of which he dated the first movement on December 21, 1822, was Felix’s first symphony for full orchestra. 123 Preceding it was an undated pendant work, the seventh String Sinfonia in D minor, Felix’s first symphony to adopt the four-movement classical paradigm with minuet. In the seventh Sinfonia Felix made his approach to Viennese classicism. The work begins in the mannered world of Emanuel Bach with yet another dramatic unison opening. The second movement, in contrast, is built upon a theme, marked amorevole , that brings us considerably closer to Mozart and Haydn. For the Minuet, Felix devised a theme susceptible to imitative counterpoint, and indeed the movement teeters on becoming a canon in the style of the canonic minuet from Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 76 No. 2 (1799). In the finale Felix introduced an academic fugue that alternates with classical homophony, to produce a rondo-like hybrid.

  These contrapuntal stirrings paled in comparison to the eighth string symphony, in which Felix vied with the radiant complexities of the Jupiter . The very outset of Felix’s work announces a stately tone in a slow introduction with dotted rhythms that comes to a pregnant pause, like so many preambles to Mozart’s and Haydn’s symphonies. The ensuing Allegro unfolds a monothematic exposition along classical lines, but in its bridge section Felix begins to indulge in canonic imitation (a technique Mozart employed in the first movement of the Jupiter )—anticipating even more contrapuntal gambits in the finale. The darkly hued Adagio, much of it scored for low, divided strings, begins with an ambiguous series of harmonies perhaps meant to allude to Mozart’s “Dissonance” String Quartet (K. 465). Felix devoted considerable effort to the brightly scored Minuet and rewrote its trio when he revised the work for full orchestra. But the pièce de résistance is the finale, a fusion of sonata form and contrapuntal gamesmanship that returns us to the Jupiter Symphony. 124 Like Mozart, Felix constructed a complex sonata-form edifice upon four subjects, ultimately combined in a stunning display of invertible counterpoint. In Mozart’s symphony the first and fourth subjects substitute for the first and second themes of a sonata-form exposition, while the second and third function as transitional and bridge material ( ex. 3.12 ). Felix adapted this strategy somewhat ( ex. 3.13 ). His monothematic exposition, which reuses the first theme on the dominant, vitiates the need for a contrasting second theme; thus, his fourth subject does not emerge until the development, where it launches a fugato in five parts. The summarizing coda of the work reconstructs the concluding stretto of the Jupiter . Introducing a “fifth” subject, Felix here spins an intricate web of invertible counterpoint in which all five appear simultaneously in various combinations, his response to the breathtaking mastery of Mozart’s stretto ( ex. 3.14 ).

  Ex. 3.12 : Mozart, Jupiter Symphony (K. 551, 1788), Finale

  Ex. 3.13 : Mendelssohn, Sinfonia No. 8 (1822), Finale, subjects

  Ex. 3.14 : Mendelssohn, Sinfonia No. 8 (1822), Finale, stretto

  In no other early work did Felix assimilate so thoroughly Mozart’s peerless craft, or attain a greater level of complexity. Only the culminating quadruple fugue of Felix’s Magnificat approaches the intricate patterns of his symphony. Judged by Mozart’s accomplishments of his thirteenth year (1769), Felix had indeed become a second Mozart; but whether the prodigy’s extraordinary talents would support a musical genius of the first magnitude still remained to be seen.

  Chapter 4

  1823–1824

  From Apprentice to Journeyman

  Now work on until you become a master.

  —Zelter to Felix, February 3, 1824 1

  “He is growing beneath my eyes” 2 —so Zelter described Felix’s unbridled development as a composer in 1823, when he created a spate of string symphonies, two concerti, another piano quartet, string quartet, violin sonata, Kyrie, Lieder, piano and organ works, and completed his fourth opera, Die beiden Neffen . Capping this startling productivity was the publication late that year of the C-minor Piano Quartet, Felix’s professional debut. Released by A. M. Schlesinger, the work was actually engraved in Paris by Schlesinger’s son Maurice, 3 himself a music publisher, who also brought out in 1823 a more weighty composition in C minor—Beethoven’s transcendent final piano sonata, Op. 111. Felix’s Op. 1 was thus an international event. The Parisian virtuoso J. P. Pixis, “thrilled by the splendid genius which expresses itself in this music,” 4 read the quartet, and a Leipzig reviewer lauded the work of a young genius following the footsteps of Mozart. 5 But a Berlin critic was more tempered—the quartet lacked Mozart’s “invigorating freshness.” 6 The scherzo was original, the finale worthy of praise, but Felix still needed to produce something to advance the art significantly. The mantle worn by the second Mozart was heavy indeed.

  I

  In spite of this public scrutiny, Felix continued to explore privately the string symphony and dispatched the last four works in the series (Nos. 9–12) along with an unnumbered, one-movement Sinfoniesatz in C minor. 7 Pendulum-like, these compositions swing between cerebral Bachian counterpoint and graceful Viennese classicism. Excepting No. 10, all contain fugal movements or passages. In No. 9, Felix’s fugal musings bring together stylistically strange bedfellows: thus, the classically symmetrical first theme of the Allegro later transforms itself into a chromatic fugue. The Sinfoniesatz and first movement of No. 12 have double fugues with slow introductions in the archaic style of the French overture, again suggestive of a neo-baroque revival. In particular, the first subject of No. 12, constructed upon the old chromatic tetrachord, bespeaks Felix’s preoccupation with Bach’s music, as do the origins of this sinfonia in an unfinished organ fantasy and fugue Felix sketched on the same subject. 8 And yet, the elegant slow movements of Nos. 11 and 12 display just how fully he had assimilated Mozart’s limpid style.

  For all their reliance on Bach and Mozart, these sinfonie show signs of experimentation. By dividing the violas, Felix now works with an enriched, five-part texture (first and second violins, first and second violas, and a bass line performed by celli and contrabass), in contrast to the traditional four-part writing of the first six string sinfonie . Again, by dividing the violas and separating the contrabass from the cello line, he occasionally expands the ensemble to six parts; and by segregating the violins into four parts in the slow movement of No. 9, he even achieves an eight-part texture hinting at the opulent string writing of the Octet, composed only two years later.

  Elsewhere the final sinfonie reveal an increased independence from familiar models. Thus, the double fugue of the Sinfoniesatz in C minor contains some stylistically incongruous passages. In the closing measures, Felix unleashes a unison passage that anticipates a remarkably similar effect in the coda of the Hebrides Overture of 1830 ( ex. 4.1 a and b ). Other innovative signs include the airy scherzo of No. 9, the engaging, Weber-like second theme of No. 10, and the yodel call in No. 9 (Trio) and Volkslied of No.11 (second movement), materials recorded during the 1822 Swiss sojourn. The Schweizerlied of No. 11, based on a wedding dance from the Emmental region, 9 offers ingratiating staccati, deft writing for the violas, and a surprise rescoring in the final section. Here a percussion complement of timpani, triangle, and cymbals joins the strings, as if recreating the boisterous
Janissary ensemble in the Allegretto of Haydn’s Military Symphony.

  Ex. 4.1a: Mendelssohn, Sinfoniesatz in C minor (1823)

  Ex. 4.1b: Mendelssohn, Hebrides Overture, Coda (1830)

  The juxtaposition of folk elements and high art in No. 11 is a sure sign Felix was enlarging his compositional canvas. In contrast to the three- and four-movement schemes of his earlier string symphonies, No. 11 has five movements: (1) sonata-form with slow introduction; (2) Schweizerlied ; (3) Mozartean Adagio; (4) Minuet (oddly enough in instead of ); and (5) an amalgam of sonata form and fugue. The presence of Swiss folk materials in an expanded symphonic format suggests also the influence of Beethoven, whose Pastoral Symphony has five movements and employs in its finale a Swiss herdsmen’s tune from the Rigi, which Felix’s family ascended in 1822.

  The sinfonie of 1823 forcefully document Felix’s first serious engagement with Beethoven’s music, in their off-beat accents and interruptions, prominent diminished-seventh sonorities, and animated stretti. The finales of Nos. 9 and 11 contain passages of massive dominant preparations, a hallmark of Beethoven’s insistent, middle-period style. Thus in No. 11, dissonant harmonies accumulate in a manner reminiscent of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata ( ex. 4.2a and b ).

  Among Felix’s other orchestral works of 1823 are two double concerti—in D minor for violin, piano, and string orchestra; and E major for two pianos and full orchestra. Felix designed the former for Eduard Rietz; the two presented it privately at a Sunday musicale on May 25 before some sixty invited guests and publicly on July 3 at the Schauspielhaus, where Felix appeared on a concert of the Neapolitan contralto Nina Cornega. 10 In laying out his score Felix ruled staves for only the two soloists and string orchestra; but a separate score for winds and timpani 11 establishes he reorchestrated the work, perhaps for the public performance. This worthy concerto then fell into oblivion until its twentieth-century revival in Berlin on June 8, 1957. Three years later an abridged version appeared, and a reliable critical edition waited until the end of the century. 12

  Ex. 4.2a: Mendelssohn, Sinfonia No. 11 (1823), Finale

  Ex. 4.2b: Beethoven, Appassionata Sonata, Op. 57 (1804–5)

  The three movements include a dramatic Allegro with a classical double exposition, an intimate Adagio with muted string accompaniment, and a Rondo that begins off the beat with an energetic piano solo. The Allegro is built upon a compact figure that in another context could have served as a fugal subject, though here Felix resisted that temptation. Rietz’s French-school style of violin playing is evident in varied bowings for the soloist, and in the first movement the lyrical second theme placed in the high register. The piano figuration includes widely spaced chords and sparkling arpeggiations now further removed from the Mozartean style of the A-minor Piano Concerto of 1822. The two soloists frequently appear alone: the center of the Adagio forms an unaccompanied duet, and the soloists’ initial entrance in the Allegro, a series of improvisation-like flourishes, is marked più lento , a tempo change that separates them even more from the orchestra. Much of the development of the first movement yields to an impassioned, romantic duet between the soloists in the distant key of D ♭ major, possibly inspired by a similar passage in Weber’s Grand Duo Concertante , for clarinet and piano (1817). The recapitulation features an impressive cadenza that culminates, in a brisk Presto , on the traditional six-four harmony, signaling the close of the cadenza.

  Felix finished the E-major double piano concerto on October 17, 1823, and probably presented it to Fanny on her birthday. The siblings premiered it at a Sunday musicale on December 7, 1823, attended by the pianist Kalkbrenner, 13 and read the concerto the next year for Ignaz Moscheles. Six years later, Felix brought the score to London, where he retouched and performed it with Moscheles. 14 Then, the work “disappeared” until Moscheles arranged an informal reading at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1860, nearly thirteen years after the death of his former student, colleague, and friend. Moscheles perplexed his associates by announcing the composer as F. Knospe, the German word for bud, as if to underscore Felix’s Mozartean precocity. 15 Like the Double Concerto for violin and piano, the E-major Double Concerto entered the Berlin Nachlass in 1878, before its rediscovery in the twentieth century, when the manuscript (and that of the Double Concerto in A ♭ major of 1824) became a pawn of the Cold War. In exchange for Western books smuggled into East Berlin, a microfilm copy made its furtive way from the partitioned city to New York, 16 and the work was heard again and recorded in the early 1950s.

  The unusual key of the concerto may unmask a debt to Fanny, who in 1822 had composed a sonata-form piano movement in E major that begins with suspiciously similar material. 17 But Felix’s elaborate first movement (450 measures) dwarfs Fanny’s modest effort (140), which lacks a second thematic group in the exposition and again discloses inexperience in sonata form. The breadth of Felix’s concerto betrays Beethovenian preoccupations. Thus, the two pianists enter with forceful cadenzas on the tonic and dominant harmonies exploiting nearly the instruments’ entire range, not unlike the adamantine opening of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, with its three sculpted cadenzas. There are other reminiscences of the Emperor —the second theme that appears initially in parallel major and minor keys, for example, and third-related mediant relationships, tonal pairings increasingly conspicuous in Felix’s early concerti. 18 The key schemes of the two concerti—Mendelssohn, E–C–E; Beethoven, E ♭ –B–E ♭ —are similar, too, although Beethoven mixes flat and sharp keys, yielding some sophisticated enharmonic relationships. All in all, Felix’s concerto remains stylistically conflicted. The warm lyricism of the first movement does not support its Beethovenian pretensions, and the slow movement occasionally brings Mozart to mind. The weakest movement is the Rondo, where considerable stretches are filled with repetitive passagework—widely spaced chords, bravura runs, and prevalent diminished-seventh sonorities—all familiar to Felix in the piano music of Weber and other virtuosi, technically effective but overused and musically unsatisfying.

  Curiously, in the outer movements Felix notated reductions of the orchestral tutti passages for the piano part, 19 as if to facilitate an optional performance for piano duet, with Felix and Fanny providing the requisite orchestral passages at the keyboard. But some reductions consist of only a figured-bass line, possibly indicating Felix’s awareness of the col basso tradition, in which during orchestral passages soloists assumed the role of a continuo instrument, and played the bass line and improvised chords above it. Indeed, there is compelling evidence that as late as the Emperor Concerto (1809) Beethoven was still observing this practice, 20 and, of course, Mozart in his piano concerti had devised figured-bass lines for the soloist to realize.

  In size and scope, the orchestral works dominated Felix’s musical landscape of 1823. Unlike Fanny, he devoted little attention to the art song; while she produced more than thirty Lieder that year, Felix wrote only a handful, all unpublished. 21 One, a charming rendition of Friedrich Matthisson’s Andenken (“Ich denke dein,” “I think of you,” 1792) is of particular interest: this poem inspired verse imitations by Frederike Brun and Goethe, and, between 1795 and 1821, Lieder by Zelter, Reichardt, Beethoven, and Schubert (D99 and 162). 22 Felix’s autograph bears the incomplete date October 1, but we may infer the year 1823, since the song follows another (Am Seegestad ) dated September 26, 1823. In Andenken , the poet, obsessed about a distant lover, associates her with nightingales, the encroaching twilight, and anxious longing. The concluding stanza breaks the pattern: he interrupts his sensuous reveries to ask when, where, and how she thinks of him. Felix captured the verses in a strophic setting for the first three stanzas, and a variation for the fourth. As in the poem, the music poses three questions, by exploiting a simple musical conceit—three unresolved dissonant chords in the piano, held by fermatas to underscore the syntactical break and extended to allow a free cadenza for the piano, as if the music conveys the question to the distant lover ( ex. 4.3 ). For the final line, the piano res
olves the “dissonant” question by reaffirming the tonic key. Now the poet thinks only of her, as the piano subtly revives through metrical shifts the fanciful figuration of the cadenza and the question-answer dialectic of the poem.

  In 1823 Felix produced piano and organ pieces with contrasting stylistic tendencies. A discursive Fantasia for piano impresses as a notated extemporization and perhaps gives an idea of Felix’s formidable improvisational skills. 23 Unpublished, it alternates between several Adagio and Allegro sections before culminating in a toccata-like fugato. Tonal latitude unusual for Felix complements the work’s structural freedom: it begins in C minor and digresses through different keys before concluding in D major. In considerable contrast is the Sonata in B ♭ minor, a taut, sonata-form movement based upon a motive related to the opening of the Piano Quartet in F minor, Op. 2, also from 1823. 24 The Sonata begins with a slow introduction, later recalled in the recapitulation, a technique Felix may have borrowed from his teacher Ludwig Berger. In marked relief to the thematic diversity of the Fantasia, the severe monothematicism of the Sonata also suggests not only Berger’s influence but Clementi’s.