Mendelssohn: Works For Violin And Piano

Description

FelixMendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)Complete music forviolin and pianoBorn in Hamburg in 1809, eldest son of the banker Abraham Mendelssohnand grandson of the great Jewish thinker Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn,who took the additional name Bartholdy on his baptism as a Christian, Heine'sticket of admission to European culture, was brought up in Berlin, where hisfamily settled in 1812. Here he enjoyed the wide cultural opportunities thathis family offered, through their own interests and connections. Mendelssohn'searly gifts, manifested in a number of directions, included marked musicalprecocity, both as a composer and as a performer, at a remarkably early age.These exceptional abilities received every encouragement from his family and theirfriends, although Abraham Mendelssohn entertained early doubts about thedesirability of his son taking the profession of musician. These reservationswere in part put to rest by the advice of Cherubini in Paris and by theincreasing signs of the boy's musical abilities and interests.Mendelssohn's early manhood brought the opportunity to travel, as farsouth as Naples and as far north as The Hebrides, with Italy and Scotland bothproviding the inspiration for later symphonies. His career involved him in theLower Rhine Festival in D??sseldorf and a period as city director of music,followed, in 1835, by appointment as conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra inLeipzig. Here he was able to continue the work he had started in Berlin sixyears earlier, when he had conducted in Berlin a revival of Bach's StMatthew Passion. Leipzig was to provide a degree of satisfaction that hecould not find in Berlin, where he returned at the invitation of King FriedrichWilhelm IV in 1841. In Leipzig once more, in 1843, he established a newConservatory, spending his final years there, until his death at the age of 38on 4th November 1847, six months after the death of his gifted and belovedsister Fanny.Mendelssohn completed his Violin Sonata in F major on 15th June1838, but withheld it from publication, leaving its rediscovery to YehudiMenuhin, who published the work in 1953. It is an example of music of thecomposer's maturity, at a time when he had begun to contemplate the greatViolin Concerto in E minor. This last was introduced to the public inLeipzig in 1845 by Ferdinand David, a pupil of Spohr, who had taken up aposition in 1836, at the age of 26, as leader of the Leipzig GewandhausOrchestra under Mendelssohn. The sonata in many ways prefigures the later concertoand was presumably written with David in mind. The first movement starts withthe expected brilliance in a principal subject stated initially by the pianoand extended by the violin. This leads to secondary material, appearing firstwith a shift to the minor. The central development ends with a passageaccompanied by violin arpeggios, prefiguring a similar passage in the futureconcerto. These arpeggios accompany the start of the recapitulation, as theprincipal subject makes i