# Mendelssohn



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

Any opinions on this composer? I personally favor quite a bit of his pieces, especially midsummer's night dream, which does fit for those rather short and warm summer nights when I need some music!


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## Haydn70

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> Any opinions on this composer? I personally favor quite a bit of his pieces, especially midsummer's night dream, which does fit for those rather short and warm summer nights when I need some music!


One of my favorite composers and the greatest prodigy in the history of music...this composed at 16 years old:


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## SixFootScowl

One of my favorite composers!

Check out his string symphonies.

Really love the oratorio Elijah, which I believe he wrote in both German and English so get which one you prefer and be confident it is not a transcription of the original but an actual original.

He has a sort of mass in the second symphony.


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## Quartetfore

He composed a great deal of Chamber Music, most of it of the highest quality.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

Well then, I'm happy to see I'm not alone in the liking of this composer! Anyone else?


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## Manxfeeder

Count me in also. I agree with those pieces listed above. I bought the Karajan Edition just for his recording of the 2nd symphony. There is also a newer recording by a young conductor which keeps popping up in the Current Listening thread which sounded very good when I heard it on Spotify. I also like Maazel's recording of the 5th symphony - it can be problematic, but he works through them and makes it convincing. 

Mendelssohn wrote some nice sacred music, like his psalm settings. I'm also a fan of Paulus. Oh, and there are the songs without words. 

He wasn't a bad painter, either.


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## SixFootScowl

And Felix had a nice sister who but for a father who would not allow it, would have become a composer as an occupation. She has a few pieces you can pick up on CD though. Otherwise, some suspect that she may have had some of her works published under her brother's name and/or maybe had some input into some of her brother's works.

Felix was hated by Wagner, in fact Wagner tried to crush him, writhing diatribes against him. Wagner perhaps is the reason Mendelssohn is considered a second rank composer. At least the author of this piece suggests so:
*Why is Mendelssohn regarded as sentimental and second-rank? Because his reputation was wrecked by Wagner, who had his own ambitions for German culture, writes Tom Service *


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

Fritz Kobus said:


> And Felix had a nice sister who but for a father who would not allow it, would have become a composer as an occupation. She has a few pieces you can pick up on CD though. Otherwise, some suspect that she may have had some of her works published under her brother's name and/or maybe had some input into some of her brother's works.
> 
> Felix was hated by Wagner, in fact Wagner tried to crush him, writhing diatribes against him. Wagner perhaps is the reason Mendelssohn is considered a second rank composer. At least the author of this piece suggests so:
> *Why is Mendelssohn regarded as sentimental and second-rank? Because his reputation was wrecked by Wagner, who had his own ambitions for German culture, writes Tom Service *


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Judenthum_in_der_Musik
I'm of Jewish decent myself and still listen to Wagner, the operas are good regardless of the political stances of the composer, not to mention Wagner himself had Jewish acquaintances.


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## SixFootScowl

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Judenthum_in_der_Musik
> I'm of Jewish decent myself and still listen to Wagner, the operas are good regardless of the political stances of the composer, not to mention *Wagner himself had Jewish acquaintances*.


Reminds me of Henry Ford. Henry had a friend who was a rabbi. As I recall the story, he would give him a new Lincoln every year. Henry also bought a newspaper and was publishing all sorts of anti-Jewish articles. The next time the rabbi refused the Lincoln and Henry was puzzled as to why. I can't imagine but I think Henry might have been rather dense apart from his mechanical (or megalomaniacal) genius.


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## Quartetfore

The conducter Hermann Levi was famed during the 19th century as a conducter of the operas. Levi was a friend of Wagner, and of course Jewish.


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## Quartetfore

I should add that Levi conducted the first performance of the opera Parsifal at Bayreuth, and was the only conducter for many years. There is a famous story about this. Wagner wanted Levi to convert before conducting the work, but Levi refused. Many of Wagner`s "fans" of our time claim that this never happened.


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## Art Rock

One of my favourite composers. Not mentioned yet, and definitely worthwhile exploring: his organ sonatas.


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## PeterF

Mendelssohn is a composer I like very much. I am especially partial to his chamber music.
His 2 Piano Trios, 8 String Quartets, and 2 String Quintets are my favorite music by Felix.


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## Common Listener

I like several of his works, too, most or all of which have been mentioned: Symphonies 3 & 4 (I would have included No. 5 until recently but either the version I've been listening to lately - Masur and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig - isn't doing it for me or it's lost its shine), the string symphonies, and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. Some others are okay, but those stick out.


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## Quartetfore

Fritz Kobus said:


> And Felix had a nice sister who but for a father who would not allow it, would have become a composer as an occupation. She has a few pieces you can pick up on CD though. Otherwise, some suspect that she may have had some of her works published under her brother's name and/or maybe had some input into some of her brother's works.
> 
> Felix was hated by Wagner, in fact Wagner tried to crush him, writhing diatribes against him. Wagner perhaps is the reason Mendelssohn is considered a second rank composer. At least the author of this piece suggests so:
> *Why is Mendelssohn regarded as sentimental and second-rank? Because his reputation was wrecked by Wagner, who had his own ambitions for German culture, writes Tom Service *


Her String quartet is a very fine work. While there is a trace of her brothers style, the work can stand by itself


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## Boludo

Fritz Kobus said:


> Mendelssohn is considered a second rank composer. At least the author of this piece suggests so:
> *Why is Mendelssohn regarded as sentimental and second-rank? Because his reputation was wrecked by Wagner, who had his own ambitions for German culture, writes Tom Service *


Mendelssohn is not considered overly sentimental and second rank. He is one of the major composers. Just like the spiel on the old LP covers, Service is creating a non-existent controversy to give himself the basis of an article.


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## jegreenwood

This thread brought me back to a very early turning point in my appreciation of classical music. I had a high school (late 60s) friend who always knew about the latest rock musicians (Hendrix, Joplin, Led Zep etc.) before anyone. I went over to his house one day, and lo and behold he was not listening to Cream - he was playing some of the Songs Without Words. He explained to me who Mendelssohn was. My friend became a composer and professor of music. And he helped me understand I could enjoy The Who and a solo piano.

Speaking of Songs Without Words, I bought Barenboim’s set, because it was the first set I could find on CD. Any other recommendations?


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## SixFootScowl

Boludo said:


> Mendelssohn is not considered overly sentimental and second rank. He is one of the major composers. Just like the spiel on the old LP covers, Service is creating a non-existent controversy to give himself the basis of an article.


Well, my mistake was quoting the article title in my post. I never found him overly sentimental. I just posted the link to reference the anti-Semitic part from Wagner. Whether Mendelssohn is second rank I suppose is open to discussion. Looking at various surveys that come up on a web search (non-scientificly conducted no doubt)he was down the list in the teens most of the time. But maybe that is still first rank or what exactly do we define rank as? So, I don't know the answer, but Mendelssohn is near the top of my list.


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## Dan Ante

When I left vinyl for CDs the first one I brought was Anne Sophie Mutter, BPO Karajan. Mendelssohn’s violin concerto on DG. 
I had not been looking for it but a sales man saw me searching through the shelves and said that this CD had just arrived in store and was selling like hot cakes so I said OK. I was not disappointed it is a lovely performance.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

jegreenwood said:


> This thread brought me back to a very early turning point in my appreciation of classical music. I had a high school (late 60s) friend who always knew about the latest rock musicians (Hendrix, Joplin, Led Zep etc.) before anyone. I went over to his house one day, and lo and behold he was not listening to Cream -* he was playing some of the Songs Without Words. * He explained to me who Mendelssohn was. My friend became a composer and professor of music. And he helped me understand I could enjoy The Who and a solo piano.
> 
> Speaking of Songs Without Words, I bought Barenboim's set, because it was the first set I could find on CD. Any other recommendations?


I'm familiar with this piece, it was (and still is?) so popular in Germany the Nazis couldn't abolish it, so it was published as "the author is unknown"...I have them in my CD collection, but sadly I lost the booklet (though the music itself plays perfectly fine)...could anyone here give me some information on them I might miss?


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## Bulldog

Fritz Kobus said:


> Well, my mistake was quoting the article title in my post. I never found him overly sentimental. I just posted the link to reference the anti-Semitic part from Wagner. Whether Mendelssohn is second rank I suppose is open to discussion. Looking at various surveys that come up on a web search (non-scientificly conducted no doubt)he was down the list in the teens most of the time. But maybe that is still first rank or what exactly do we define rank as? So, I don't know the answer, but Mendelssohn is near the top of my list.


Being in the teens is quite high. I'm confident that composers such as Shostakovich, Schumann and Scriabin are no higher, and they sure aren't 2nd rank - neither is Mendelssohn.


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## simokivisto

Boludo said:


> Mendelssohn is not considered overly sentimental and second rank. He is one of the major composers. Just like the spiel on the old LP covers, Service is creating a non-existent controversy to give himself the basis of an article.


Historically speaking the article is probably right though, Wikipedia gives: _After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his creative originality has been re-evaluated._. Spanish Wikipedia gives the source for this: p. 463, Todd, R. Larry (2003). Mendelssohn - A Life in Music. Oxford; Nueva York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511043-9.

I have met people who still have been somewhat dismissive of Mendelssohn (I may have been somewhat dismissive when I was young) but this is anecdotal of course...


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## Art Rock

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> I'm familiar with this piece, it was (and still is?) so popular in Germany the Nazis couldn't abolish it, so it was published as "the author is unknown"...I have them in my CD collection, but sadly I lost the booklet (though the music itself plays perfectly fine)...could anyone here give me some information on them I might miss?


Probably this one:


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## whispering

I listen to classical music. Not to up on the technical phrases used but I know what I like. I always find articles about whether a certain composer is second rate or not very difficult to take seriously. Take Mendelssohn. Love the violin concerto, the Octet, a couple of the string quartets. Same with Schumann and Brahms on certain pieces. Only Beethoven comes close to me liking virtually everything I have heard, to the degree of investing serious time on the piano sonatas. Can we not just accept we all have differing opinions and a composer can appeal on some pieces and not others. Ultimately ranking is trivial and subjective, the pure joy of listening to a piece of music which you really enjoy a gift from the past. We seem to be in an era of tables, rankings, etc, running the risk of failing to appreciate the diversity of what is on offer. Am I alone in such thoughts.


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## flamencosketches

whispering said:


> I listen to classical music. Not to up on the technical phrases used but I know what I like. I always find articles about whether a certain composer is second rate or not very difficult to take seriously. Take Mendelssohn. Love the violin concerto, the Octet, a couple of the string quartets. Same with Schumann and Brahms on certain pieces. Only Beethoven comes close to me liking virtually everything I have heard, to the degree of investing serious time on the piano sonatas. Can we not just accept we all have differing opinions and a composer can appeal on some pieces and not others. Ultimately ranking is trivial and subjective, the pure joy of listening to a piece of music which you really enjoy a gift from the past. We seem to be in an era of tables, rankings, etc, running the risk of failing to appreciate the diversity of what is on offer. Am I alone in such thoughts.


No, I agree wholeheartedly. Well said. I don't know what it is, and maybe it's something about our times, but I've noticed it in a lot of people I know, especially music lovers, but really everyone; people like to think in superlative. Certainly guilty of this myself, I sometimes catch myself trying to think of who are my favorite composers or some such.

Anyway, I've been really digging into a lot of Mendelssohn's music lately since I've never really delved deep in much of it before. The symphonies (loving especially the Italian lately), the string symphonies, the piano trios, the violin concerto, the GREAT songs without words, etc. He's definitely up there with Schubert, Schumann and Chopin with the best composers of his times (early 19th century - I tend to put Beethoven in his own class out of fairness to the others :lol: ). Not as prolific as a Schubert (few are), not as intensely emotional as a Chopin (ditto), not as revolutionary in form and feeling as a Schumann... but there's still something masterful there, and I would say few of his contemporaries were as balanced in their musical output as was he.

There is something to be said also about Mendelssohn's masterful craftsmanship in how it developed so fully formed at such a young age. Listen to the string symphonies, any one of them, written when he was 12 to 14. This is a body of works in one particular genre to rival those of many, written by a child. I'm not going to spark the same argument going on in my recent thread, but he was absolutely one of a kind in his precociousness.

Fascinating composer. I think he gets the respect he deserves, now, anyway, but I hope he continues to for as long as people are listening to classical music.


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## Woodduck

Boludo said:


> Mendelssohn is not considered overly sentimental and second rank. He is one of the major composers. Just like the spiel on the old LP covers, Service is creating a non-existent controversy to give himself the basis of an article.


I agree. There's no reason to think that Wagner's thoughts on Mendelssohn were adopted by the culture as a whole. Besides, Wagner knew very well that Mendelssohn was a superb composer and said so. Wagner-bashing is too easy and is a sure-fire way to get attention in the popular media (and, for that matter, on internet forums).


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## DeepR

I like what I've heard, including some of his solo piano music.

Also, I adore the final movement of the 2nd Symphony Lobgesang. So uplifting!
Rarely gets any appreciation around here. I have no idea why.

Starts at 53:33:


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## simokivisto

One more example of some criticism (which I in no way endorse). This one is from _The Rough Guide to Classical Music (5. ed)_:


> The conductor Hans von Bülow said of Mendelssohn that he began as a genius and ended as a talent
> [...]
> It had been a brilliant career and yet also something of an anticlimax. Mendelssohn was described by von Bülow as the most complete master of musical form after Mozart, and this very mastery is perhaps the chief reason for his relapse into self-conscious politesse - the creation of pleasing, impeccably structured music came easily to him. His music is as bereft of struggle as was his life. Never did he lack money, praise or support, and not until the death of his sister did he experience genuine misery - and by then it was too late. No other great composer experienced such complete insulation from hardship, and there is little question that his cushioned existence impaired his creative development. His emotional range never really broadened, so is it surprising that his music remained consistent? One example tells the whole story - his A Midsummer Night's Dream. He wrote the overture in 1826 and, seventeen years later, added the incidental music. So identical in style is the additional material that it seems more like seventeen days: there's not the slightest evidence of creative evolution in its hugely enjoyable, supremely elegant and completely untroubling pages.


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## Common Listener

_...not until the death of his sister did he experience genuine misery - and by then it was too late._

Dang it. It's a shame she didn't die earlier so he'd have made better music.

_He wrote the overture in 1826 and, seventeen years later, added the incidental music. So identical in style is the additional material that it seems more like seventeen days..._

If only he'd have made the overture and the rest of the incidental music completely unrelated so that they couldn't enjoyably be listened to together.

But seriously, I don't think suffering is a necessary prerequisite of art (general experience which includes some measure of suffering for everyone, sure, but not "suffering" as such). The point that Mendelssohn may not have evolved might be argued, but arguing that something which, by design, should be similar, isn't the best example to use, especially when incompatibility would be the most likely outcome and achieving compatibility is a success. And I'd still argue the other way - to claim that there's no evolution from Symphony No. 1 to the "Reformation" to "Italian" to "Scottish" (or even from the early string symphonies to the late, even though all are very early in a sense) is a hard case to make. I agree with you, simokivisto - I don't endorse it either.


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## Mandryka

jegreenwood said:


> Speaking of Songs Without Words, I bought Barenboim's set, because it was the first set I could find on CD. Any other recommendations?


Yes, Friedman, Grinberg and Rév, Friedman particularly successful.


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