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 Evidently, this work remained unpublished during her lifetime, and as a matter of fact, it was not published until 1994.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.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
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
|