Mendelssohn is one of my favorite composers – several of his works are on my Top 100 list, HERE – and now that I’ve listened to his Piano Concerto No. 1, I’m pretty sure I have heard it before. Something about the third movement sounded very familiar.
However, this concerto has not been one of my “go to” pieces when I’m in the mood to hear a piano concerto (like the Rachmaninoff 2, the Grieg, Beethoven’s “Emperor,” Mozart's No. 21, the Rach 3, etc.). Still, the first and second movements did not sound familiar at all, so maybe I haven’t heard it in the past? The concerto consists of three movements:
Contrary to the standard practice of the day, the featured instrument (i.e., the piano) enters very quickly after only a few bars of orchestral introduction. From a Wikipedia article about the concerto: “It was standard procedure in the classical-era concerto to precede the solo's entrance by a tutti, for various reasons – the length and purpose of these introductions differed, some offering a hint of what was to follow and some giving out almost all the movement's material, but none was so brief as this: in this sense, this was one of the first concertos of the Romantic age. (The obvious exceptions – Mozart's Jeunehomme concerto and Beethoven's fourth and fifth piano concertos – allowed the piano to enter very briefly just at the start, but then proceeded as usual, the soloist silent.)” The complete article is HERE. When the piano enters, it does so with force and passion, almost anger. The movement is filled with so much furor that I wondered what in the world was going on in Mendelssohn’s life when he wrote it. I ran a Google search on the piece to find out when it was written, and in the article I linked above, I found this: “Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, was written in 1830–31, around the same time as his fourth symphony ("Italian")....” Well, that certainly shattered my theory that something serious might have been going on with Mendelssohn because his fourth symphony is one of the most joyous pieces ever written. In addition, according to the same article, Mendelssohn said of the concerto "I wrote it in but a few days and almost carelessly.” Hmm…if only I were so careless. LOL. The second movement, written in a major key, shifts the tone of the concerto, and the third and final movement, which opens with a fanfare in A minor, modulates to E major and closes the work with an upbeat and lighter mood. And now, due to my practice of listening to a new piece each week, my list of "go to" piano concertos is growing!
0 Comments
For this week’s selection, I ran a Google-search of the most underrated composers. I found this list – HERE – and voila, there was Fanny Mendelssohn. Coincidentally, I had mentioned Fanny on this site – sort of -- when I posted #26 on my “Top 100 Classical Music Favorites. Concerning Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, I wrote, “when Mendelssohn was in the process of writing it, he wrote to his sister, ‘The Italian symphony is making great progress. It will be the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last movement.’” I didn’t even mention her name. Furthermore, at the time, I didn't even know that she was a composer.
Who knows what type of success Fanny could have achieved if she were to have garnered the same praise and support as Felix.
To select a piece by Fanny Mendelssohn, I ran a search on YouTube of her name, and voila once again, I found the “Overture in C,” her only purely orchestral work. Evidently, this work remained unpublished during her lifetime, and as a matter of fact, it was not published until 1994. As far as I know, there is no story related with this overture, although there are various passages and melodies that made me wonder what story she might have had in mind were this overture to open an opera. The piece begins with a soft chord from the horns followed by a delicate, lilting melody played gently between the strings and woodwinds. Then, after a sparkling run of strings and a somewhat subdued fanfare, the piece takes off with energetic strains until the end. There are a few surprises, a key modulation here and there, and an occasional variation in dynamics, but overall, the piece is reasonably conventional – though entirely effervescent.
At first, it just seemed as though the piece needed – something? However, on subsequent assessments, I’ve backed off from that evaluation. The overture grew on me. The Overture in C Major is a very pleasant piece, and it is delightful just the way it is. It is a fun piece, a jaunty piece, and one I enjoyed very much. |
A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
September 2023
Categories
All
|