Release Date: 12 January 1999
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099418621
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: MENDELSSOHN
Description
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809 - 1847) Piano Music Vol. 3 Sonata in B flat major, Op. 106 Three Fantasies or Caprices, Op. 16 Album-Leaf in E minor, Op. 117 Andante cantabile e Presto agitato in B major Variations in E flat major, Op. 82 Rondo capriccioso in E major, Op. 14 Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg in 1809, eldest son of the banker Abraham Mendelssohn and grandson of the great Jewish thinker Moses Mendelssohn, the model for his friend Lessing's magnanimous and tolerant Nathan the Wise. In 1812 the family moved to Berlin, after the French occupation of Hamburg, and it was there that Mendelssohn received his education, in music as a pupil of Carl Zelter, for whom the boy seemed a second Mozart. As a child he was charming and precocious, profiting from the wide cultural interests and connections of his parents and relations, excelling as a pianist and busy \With composition after composition. In 1816 he was baptized a Christian, a step his father took six years later, accepting what Heine cynically described as a ticket of admission into European culture, although it was one not always regarded as valid by prejudiced contemporaries. Abraham Mendelssohn sought the best advice when it came to his son's choice of career. Cherubini, director of the Paris Conservatoire, was consulted, and, while complimenting Abraham Mendelssohn on his wealth, agreed that his son should become a professional musician, advice given during the course of a visit to Paris in 1825, when Mendelssohn met many of the most distinguished composers and performers of the day. In Berlin his career took shape, with prolific composition and activity as a pianist and as a conductor. His education was to include a period of travel throughout Europe, a Grand Tour that took him as far north as Scotland and as far south as Naples, his journeys serving as sources of inspiration. In 1833 Mendelssohn was invited to conduct at the Lower Rhine Festival in Düsseldorf, where he held the position of city director of music for two years, and in 1835 he accepted appointment as conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. There were, at the same time, other commitments to be fulfilled in a short career of intense activity, with a series of visits to England, where he was always welcome. In Leipzig he established a series of historical concerts, continuing the revival of earlier music on which he had embarked under Zelter with the Berlin performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion in 1829. At the same time he gave every encouragement to contemporary composers, even to those for whom he felt little sympathy. At the insistence of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV he accepted an official position in Berlin, but this failed to give him the satisfaction he had found in Leipzig, where he established the Conservatory in 1843 and where he spent his final years until his death at the age of thirty-eight on 4th November 1847, six months after the death of his gifted and beloved sister Fa
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
Benjamin
Erik Bertsch
Benjamin
Benjamin
Benjamin
Benjamin
