Release Date: 03 January 2001
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099452229
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: MENDELSSOHN
Description
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847) Symphony No.2, Op. 52, "Hymn ofPraise"Born in Hamburg in 1809, eldest son of the banker AbrahamMendelssohn and grandson of the great Jewish thinker Moses Mendelssohn, FelixMendelssohn, who took the additional name Bartholdy on his baptism as aChristian - Heine's ticket of admission to European culture - was brought up inBerlin, where his family settled in 1812. Here he enjoyed the wide culturalopportunities that his family offered, through their own interests andconnections. Mendelssohn's early gifts, manifested in a number of directions,included marked musical precocity, both as a player and as a composer, at aremarkably early age. These exceptional abilities received every encouragementfrom his family and their friends, although Abraham Mendelssohn entertainedearly doubts about the desirability of his son taking the profession ofmusician. These reservations were in part put to rest by the advice ofCherubini in Paris and by the increasing signs of the boy's musical abilitiesand interests.Mendelssohn's early manhood brought theopportunity to travel, as far south as Naples and as far north as The Hebrides,with Italy and Scotland both providing the inspiration for later symphonies.His career involved him in the Lower Rhine Festival in D??sseldorf and a periodas city director of music, followed, in 1835, by appointment as conductor ofthe Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. Here he was able to continue the work hehad started in Berlin six years earlier, when he had conducted a revival ofBach's St Matthew Passion. Leipzig was to provide a degree ofsatisfaction that he could not find in Berlin, where he returned at theinvitation of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV in 1841. In Leipzig once more, in 1843,he established a new Conservatory, spending his final years there, until hisdeath at the age of 38 on 4th November 1847, six months after the death of hisgifted and beloved sister Fanny.Mendelssohn wrote his second symphony, Lobgesang(Hymn of Praise), in 1840 as part of the musical celebration of thequartercentenary of Gutenberg's invention of printing with movable type. Forthe same occasion he wrote his Festgesang, the source of the EnglishChristmas hymn Hark, the herald angels sing, originally a song in praiseof Gutenberg. Mendelssohn had in fact already completed three symphonies butdiscounted the fifth, the Reformation Symphony, which he saw as afailure, and the Italian Symphony, which he intended to revise. The ScottishSymphony was eventually completed in 1842. Lobgesang enjoyedimmediate popularity at its first performance in Leipzig in June 1840, followedby a performance in Birmingham and. by command of the King of Saxony. a furtherperformance in Leipzig in November, for which Mendelssohn made some revisions,notably in the addition of three further vocal movements, the tenor recitativeof the third movement. the sixth movement tenor solo and the ninth movementduet for soprano and tenor. It seems that the opening Sinfoni
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
