Cambridge University Press
0521826039 - The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn - Edited by Peter Mercer-Taylor
Frontmatter/Prelims

The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn

The Companion to Mendelssohn is written by leading scholars in the field. In fourteen chapters they explore the life, work, and reception of a composer-performer once thought uniquely untroubled in life and art alike, but who is now broadly understood as one of the nineteenth century’s most deeply problematic musical figures. The first section of the volume considers issues of biography, with chapters dedicated to Mendelssohn’s role in the emergence of Europe’s modern musical institutions, to the persistent tensions of his German-Jewish identity, and to his close but enigmatic relationship with his gifted older sister, Fanny. The following nine essays survey Mendelssohn’s expansive and multi-faceted musical output, marked as it was by successes in almost every contemporary musical genre outside of opera. The volume’s two closing essays confront, in turn, the turbulent course of Mendelssohn’s posthumous reception and some of the challenges his music continues to pose for modern performers.

PETER MERCER-TAYLOR is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Minnesota School of Music. He is the author of The Life of Mendelssohn (Cambridge, 2000) and has published in a number of journals including The Journal of Musicology and Popular Music.

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The Cambridge Companion to
MENDELSSOHN

.............

EDITED BY
Peter Mercer-Taylor

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First published 2004

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		Notes on contributors [page vi]
		Acknowledgments [ix]
		Chronology [x]
		List of abbreviations [xv]

		Introduction: Mendelssohn as border-dweller Peter Mercer-Taylor [1]

		Part I · Issues in biography
1		Mendelssohn and the institution(s) of German art music Peter Mercer-Taylor [11]
2		Mendelssohn and Judaism Michael P. Steinberg [26]
3		Felix and Fanny: gender, biography, and history Marian Wilson Kimber [42]

		Part II · Situating the compositions
4		Mendelssohn and the rise of musical historicism James Garratt [55]
5		Mendelssohn as progressive Greg Vitercik [71]

		Part III · Profiles of the music
6		Symphony and overture Douglass Seaton [91]
7		The works for solo instrument(s) and orchestra Steve Lindeman [112]
8		Mendelssohn’s chamber music Thomas Schmidt-Beste [130]
9		The music for keyboard Glenn Stanley [149]
10		On Mendelssohn’s sacred music, real and imaginary R. Larry Todd [167]
11		Mendelssohn’s songs Susan Youens [189]
12		Felix Mendelssohn’s dramatic compositions: from Liederspiel to Lorelei Monika Hennemann [206]

		Part IV · Reception and performance
13		Mendelssohn received John Michael Cooper [233]
14		Wagner as Mendelssohn: reversing habits and reclaiming meaning in the performance of Mendelssohn’s music for orchestra and chorus Leon Botstein [251]

		Notes [269]
		Select bibliography [297]
		Index [301]

Contributors

Leon Botstein is President and Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Bard College. He is the author of Judentum und Modernität and Jefferson’s Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture. He is also the editor of The Compleat Brahms and The Musical Quarterly, as well as music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra. He has recorded works by, among others, Szymanowski, Hartmann, Bruch, Toch, Dohnányi, Bruckner, Glière, Reger, Richard Strauss, and Mendelssohn for Telarc, CRI, Koch, Arabesque, and New World Records.

John Michael Cooper is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of North Texas. He is the author of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: A Guide to Research and Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony, and editor, with Julie D. Prandi, of The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History. He was also the general editor of a three-volume facsimile edition of the complete surviving autographs for Mendelssohn’s A major Symphony.

James Garratt is Lecturer in Music and University Organist at the University of Manchester. His main research interests are in nineteenth-century German music, thought, and culture. His publications include Palestrina and the German Romantic Imagination: Interpreting Historicism in Nineteenth-Century Music, as well as several articles on Mendelssohn.

Monika Hennemann has been a member of the Musicology Faculty at Florida State University, the German Faculty at the University of Rhode Island, and most recently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Musicology at the College-Conservatory of Music (University of Cincinnati). She has written extensively on Mendelssohn and also published articles on Webern and on nineteenth-century reception history.

Steve Lindeman is Associate Professor of Music at Brigham Young University. His research interests include Mendelssohn, the concerto genre, and jazz. He is the author of Structural Novelty and Tradition in the Early Romantic Piano Concerto, and of articles on Mendelssohn and other composer-pianists in The Musical Quarterly, the revised edition of The New Grove Dictionary, and The Cambridge Companion to the Concerto.

Peter Mercer-Taylor is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of Minnesota. His articles on Mendelssohn, Weber, and various popular music topics have appeared in 19th-Century Music, The Journal of Musicology, Popular Music, Music & Letters, and Popular Music & Society. He is the author of The Life of Mendelssohn.

Thomas Schmidt-Beste received his Ph. D. in 1995, with a dissertation on Mendelssohn’s musical aesthetics. He served subsequently as Research Associate with the project “Cappella Sistina” of the Heidelberg Academy of Arts and Sciences, and completed his Habilitation in 2001 with a thesis on text declamation in the fifteenth-century motet. Schmidt-Beste is currently a Heisenberg Research Scholar of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and Lecturer at the University of Heidelberg.

Douglass Seaton is Warren D. Allen Professor of Music at The Florida State University. In addition to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, his research interests center on the interactions between music and literature. He is author of Ideas and Styles in the Western Musical Tradition and editor of The Mendelssohn Companion and of the critical edition of Mendelssohn’s “Lobgesang.”

Glenn Stanley is Professor of Music at the University of Connecticut. He edited the Cambridge Companion to Beethoven, wrote the article on Schubert’s religious music for the Cambridge Companion to Schubert and will contribute the chapter on Parsifal for the Cambridge Companion to Wagner. His most recent work includes essays on the writing of music history in divided Germany after World War Ⅱ, and discussions of orchestration in nineteenth-century choral music and the Fifth Symphony by Beethoven.

Michael P. Steinberg is Professor of Modern European History at Cornell University and associate editor of The Musical Quarterly. He is the author of Listening to Reason: Culture, Subjectivity, and Nineteenth-Century Music and Austria as Theater and Ideology: The Meaning of the Salzburg Festival. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as the Austrian State Prize for History and the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin.

R. Larry Todd, Professor of Music at Duke University, has published widely on music of the nineteenth century, especially that of the Mendelssohns. He is the author of Mendelssohn: A Life in Music and Mendelssohn: The Hebrides and Other Overtures, and editor of Mendelssohn and his World and Mendelssohn Studies. Todd has also edited several of Mendelssohn’s sacred works, including the oratorios St. Paul and Elijah.

Greg Vitercik is Chair of the Music Department at Middlebury College where he teaches music history, theory, analysis, interdisciplinary studies, and performance. He is the author of The Early Works of Felix Mendelssohn: A Study in the Romantic Sonata Style.

Marian Wilson Kimber is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Iowa. She is the author of articles in 19th-Century Music, The Journal of Musicology and 19th-Century Studies, and chapters in The Mendelssohn Companion, Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy, The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History, and Nineteenth-Century Piano Music.

Susan Youens is Professor of Musicology at the University of Notre Dame and the author of seven books on the songs of Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf, including Hugo Wolf and his Mörike Songs and Schubert’s Late Lieder: Beyond the Song Cycles.

Acknowledgments

I offer my first thanks to John Michael Cooper for his help in identifying potential contributors, and his encouragement throughout the development of this project. Parts of my own contribution to this volume were read – and improved – by Michael Cherlin, Alex Lubet, and Colleen Seguin. I am grateful to Annett Richter for offering a native speaker’s insights on a number of German passages, and to Heath Mathews and Kurt Miyashiro, who set the musical examples for this volume, and to Lucy Carolan, at Cambridge University Press, for the keen editorial eye she brought to the whole.

Permission to include facsimiles and text in this volume is gratefully acknowledged to the following:

The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – PreuΒischer Kulturbesitz Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv for permission to reproduce the manuscript pages that appear in Plates 12.1a and 12.1b.

Oxford University Press for permission to include in Chapter 2 material based on Michael P. Steinberg, “Mendelssohn’s Music and German-Jewish Culture: An Intervention,” Musical Quarterly 83 (1999), 31–44. © Oxford University Press.

University of California Press for permission to include in Chapter 3 material based on “The Suppression of Fanny Mendelssohn: Rethinking Feminist Biography,” 19th-Century Music 26 (2002), 113–29. The Regents of the University of California.

Chronology

1809	FelixMendelssohn is born in Hamburg on 3 February.
1811	The Mendelssohn family moves to Berlin.
1816	Felix begins two years of elementary school at the Lehr-, Pensions-, und Erziehungsanstalt. On 21 March, the four Mendelssohn children are baptized. During a family visit to Paris, Felix takes lessons with violinist Pierre Baillot and with pianist Marie Bigot.
1818	Fanny and Felix begin lessons with Ludwig Berger. On 28 October, Felix takes part in a concert given by horn player Friedrich Gugel.
1819	Carl Wilhelm Ludwig Heyse begins his seven years of service as children’s private tutor. Around this time, Mendelssohn begins violin lessons with Carl Wilhelm Henning, soon replaced by Eduard Rietz. From this year date the earliest documents pertaining to Mendelssohn’s lessons in composition with Karl Friedrich Zelter.
1820	Felix and Fanny join the Berlin Singakademie. Compositions: chamber works and lieder; Ich, J Mendelssohn (Lustspiel) and Die Soldatenliebschaft (Singspiel).
1821	On 18 June, Mendelssohn attends the premiere of Weber’s Der Freischütz in Berlin’s new Schauspielhaus. He travels with Zelter to Weimar, where, in November, he meets Goethe. Compositions: Die beiden Pädagogen (Singspiel); Piano Sonata in G minor [op. 105]; the first six or seven of twelve string sinfonias (1821–23); Die wandernden Komödianten (Singspiel).
1822	Regular Sunday musicales have begun in the Mendelssohn household. The family takes a summer holiday in Switzerland. Compositions: Magnificat in D; Piano Quartet no. 1 in C minor op. 1 (pub. 1823).
1823	Kalkbrenner plays at one of the Mendelssohn’s Sunday musicales. In August Mendelssohn travels with his father to Silesia. Compositions: Concerto for two pianos in E; Violin Sonata in F minor op. 4 (pub. 1824); Die beiden Neffen oder Der Onkel aus Boston (Singspiel); Piano Quartet no. 2 in F minor op. 2 (pub. 1824).
1824	Ignaz Moscheles, who will become Mendelssohn’s lifelong friend, gives Fanny and Felix several piano lessons. Compositions: Symphony no. 1 in C minor op. 11 (chamber arr. pub. 1830, parts pub. 1834); Sextet in D [op. 110]; Overture for Wind Instruments op. 24 (first version, rev. version pub. 1839); Concerto for two pianos in A♭.
1825	During a March visit to Paris – bookended by two further visits with Goethe – Mendelssohn and his father call on Luigi Cherubini to gauge Felix’s musical promise; Cherubini greets Mendelssohn’s Piano Quartet op. 3 with enthusiastic praise. That summer, the Mendelssohns move into their new home at 3 Leipzigerstraße. Compositions: Piano Quartet no. 3 in B minor op. 3; Die Hochzeit des Camacho op. 10 (Singspiel; pub. 1828); Octet in E♭ op. 20 (piano duet arr. pub. 1833).
1826	On 19 November, Felix and Fanny play a four-hand version of the Sommernachtstraum Overture op. 21 for Ignaz Moscheles. Carl Maria von Weber dies in London on 25 June. Compositions: “Trumpet” Overture [op. 101]; Piano Sonata in E op. 6; String Quintet in A op. 18, first version (rev. 1832, pub. 1833); Ein Sommernachtstraum Overture op. 21 (pub. 1832); Te Deum.
1827	On 20 February, Mendelssohn’s Sommernachtstraum Overture and his A♭ concerto for two pianos are performed on the same concert with the north German premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Beethoven dies on 26 March. On 29 April, Mendelssohn’s opera Die Hochzeit des Camacho receives its first and last public performance. Mendelssohn begins his first four semesters of study at the University of Berlin, including Hegel’s lectures on aesthetics. Compositions: pub. of Sieben Characterstücke op. 7 (inc. numbers composed as early as 1824); Piano Sonata in B♭ [op. 106]; String Quartet no. 2 in A minor op. 13 (pub. 1830); “Christe, du Lamm Gottes” (the first of eight chorale cantatas that Mendelssohn would compose between 1827 and 1832); completion of pub. of Zwölf Gesänge op. 8 (first six pub. 1826, composed c. 1824–27; nos. 2, 3, and 12 are by Fanny Mendelssohn).
1828	After performance of Mendelssohn’s cantata for Berlin’s 18 April Dürerfest, artist Gottfried Schadow pronounces the young composer an honorary member of the Academy of Art. Schubert dies on 19 November. Compositions: Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt Overture op. 27, first version (rev. 1834, pub. 1835); Grosse Festmusik zum Dürerfest.
1829	On 11 March, Mendelssohn directs the Berlin Singakademie in a revival of J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, its first hearing since Bach’s death. He travels to England in April, makes several dazzling appearances in the course of London’s concert season, then tours Scotland and Wales on foot. He returns to Berlin for the winter. On 3 October, Fanny Mendelssohn marries painter Wilhelm Hensel. Compositions: String Quartet no. 1 in E♭ op. 12 (pub. 1830); Trois fantaisies ou caprices op. 16 (pub. 1831); Heimkehr aus der Fremde [op. 89] (Liederspiel).
1830	Mendelssohn is offered the new chair in music at the University of Berlin, which he does not accept. On 8 May, he sets off on his Grand Tour to the south, visiting his grandfather Moses’ birthplace, Dessau, and meeting Goethe for the last time in Weimar. He sojourns briefly in Munich, Vienna, Pressburg, and Venice before his November arrival in Rome, where he spends the winter. Compositions: “Reformation” Symphony in D [op. 107]; Rondo Capriccioso in E op. 14 (based on an “étude” of 1828); Drei Kirchenmusiken op. 23 (pub. 1832); Psalm 115 op. 31; Die Hebriden Overture op. 26 (in its first version, titled Ouvertüre zur einsamen Insel; pub., after extensive revision, 1833); pub. of Zwölf Lieder op. 9 (composed 1827–30; nos. 7, 10, and 12 are by Fanny Mendelssohn).
1831	Mendelssohn meets Donizetti in Naples and pianist Dorothea von Ertmann, a friend of Beethoven’s, in Milan. He tours Switzerland in the summer, and reaches Paris on 9 December. Compositions: Piano Concerto no. 1 in G minor op. 25 (pub. 1832).
1832	In Paris for the winter, Mendelssohn receives word of the deaths of Goethe and his close friend Eduard Rietz. He performs in London in the spring, where he learns of the death of his teacher, Zelter. Mendelssohn returns to Berlin in late June. Compositions: Die erste Walpurgisnacht op. 60 (first version; rev. 1842–43, pub. 1844); Capriccio brillant op. 22; pub. of first volume of Lieder ohne Worte, op. 19[b], under the title “Original Melodies for the Pianoforte” (incl. items dating back to 1829).
1833	Mendelssohn’s reluctant candidacy for the directorship of the Berlin Singakademie comes to naught; Zelter’s long-time assistant Rungenhagen is elected in January. In May, Mendelssohn conducts the Lower Rhine Music Festival, returns to London with his father for much of the summer, then returns to Düsseldorf in October to assume the post of the city’s music director, a three-year contract. Compositions: Fantasia in F＃ minor op. 28, “Sonate écossaise” (pub. 1834); Symphony no. 4 in A, “Italian” [op. 90] (first version; rev. 1834); Die schöne Melusine Overture op. 32 (pub. 1836); pub. of Sechs Gesänge op. 19[a].
1834	In Düsseldorf, amid extensive choral and orchestral conducting, Mendelssohn becomes musical intendant for Karl Immermann’s new theater, but abandons the project in frustration in early November. Compositions: Rondo brillant op. 29.
1835	Mendelssohn gives his last Düsseldorf concert in July. In August, he arrives in Leipzig, where he assumes his new post as municipal music director and conductor of the Gewandhaus orchestra. Leipzig would remain his home, with occasional hiatuses, for the rest of his life. His father, Abraham, dies on 19 November. Compositions: pub. of Lieder ohne Worte vol. II op. 30;
1836	In March, Mendelssohn receives an honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig. He directs the Lower Rhine Music Festival in Düsseldorf in late May, where St. Paul is premiered to terrific acclaim. During his summer stay in Frankfurt, Mendelssohn courts Cécile Jeanrenaud, to whom he becomes engaged at the end of August. Compositions: St. Paul, op. 36; pub. of Trois caprices op. 33 (incl. material dating back to 1833).
1837	In March, St. Paul is performed in Boston. Felix and Cécile are married on 28 March, and honeymoon through the summer. Compositions: String Quartet no. 4 in E minor op. 44 no. 2 (pub. 1839); Psalm 42 op. 42 (pub. 1838); Piano Concerto no. 2 in D minor op. 40 (pub. 1838); Six Preludes and Fugues for piano op. 35 (completed, incl. material dating back to 1827); Three Preludes and Fugues for organ op. 37 (completed, incl. material dating back to 1833); pub. of Lieder ohne Worte vol. III op. 38; pub. of Sechs Gesänge op. 34.
1838	In February, Mendelssohn begins his first series of “historical” concerts at the Gewandhaus. Carl Wolfgang Paul Mendelssohn, Felix and Cécile’s first child, is born on 7 February. In Cologne, Mendelssohn conducts his third Lower Rhine Music Festival. Compositions: String Quartet no. 5 in E♭ op. 44 no. 3 (pub. 1839); Psalm 95 op. 46 (first version; pub. 1842); Serenade and Allegro giojoso op. 43 (pub. 1839); String Quartet no. 3 in D op. 44 no. 1 (pub. 1839); Cello Sonata no. 1 in B♭ op. 45 (pub. 1839); pub. of Three Motets op. 39 (incl. material dating back to 1830); pub. of Sechs Lieder “Im freien zu singen” op. 41, his first set of songs for mixed chorus (two more followed in his lifetime: op. 48 in 1840 and op. 59 in 1843).
1839	Mendelssohn conducts the premiere of Schubert’s Symphony no. 9 in March. In May, he conducts the Lower Rhine Music Festival in Düsseldorf, then the Brunswick Music Festival in September. Compositions: Ruy Blas Overture [op. 95]; Piano Trio no. 1 in D minor op. 49 (pub. 1840); Psalm 114 op. 51 (pub. 1841); pub. of Sechs Lieder op. 47.
1840	All four of Beethoven’s overtures to Fidelio are performed at a single Gewandhaus concert in January. In August, Mendelssohn offers an all-Bach organ recital at the Thomaskirche to raise funds for the erection of a new Bach monument. Compositions: pub. of Six Male Choruses op. 50; Symphony no. 2 in B♭ op. 52, Lobgesang (pub. 1841).
1841	After repeated overtures from Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm Ⅳ, Mendelssohn reluctantly moves to Berlin for a one-year trial period, during which he is to participate in a vaguely defined plan to revitalize the city’s musical life. Compositions: Variations sérieuses op. 54; incidental music to Antigone op. 55 (pub. 1843); pub. of Lieder ohne Worte vol. IV op. 53.
1842	In May, Mendelssohn conducts the Lower Rhine Music Festival in Düsseldorf, then travels to London, where he is twice welcomed by Prince Albert and Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace. In October, Friedrich Wilhelm Ⅳ frees Mendelssohn to return to Leipzig for the Gewandhaus season, but names him Generalmusikdirektor (on 4 December), with the understanding that he will return to supervise the new cathedral choir the following year. Mendelssohn’s mother, Lea, dies on 12 December. Compositions: Symphony no. 3 in A minor op. 56, “Scottish.”
1843	Leipzig’s new music conservatory – which Mendelssohn had formally proposed to Saxon King Friedrich August Ⅱ in 1840 – opens its doors in April under Mendelssohn’s leadership. He returns to Berlin in November, where he conducts several concerts and assumes control of the cathedral choir. Compositions: Cello Sonata no. 2 in D op. 58; incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream op. 61 (pub. 1844); Psalm 98 [op. 91]; pub. of Sechs Lieder op. 57.
1844	Mendelssohn continues his work with the cathedral choir through Holy Week, then journeys to England, where he performs extensively. In September, back in Berlin, he finally succeeds in being released from his duties to that city and returns to Leipzig. Compositions: Violin Concerto in E minor op. 64 (pub. 1845); pub. of Lieder ohne Worte vol. V op. 62; completion of Three Psalms [op. 78].
1845	The early part of the year is spent in Frankfurt with few professional obligations. In the fall, he returns to work in Leipzig, but shares conducting duties with Niels Gade. Compositions: Piano Trio no. 2 in C minor op. 66 (pub. 1846); String Quintet no. 2 in B♭ [op. 87]; Six Sonatas for organ op. 65 (composed 1844–45); pub. of Lieder ohne Worte vol. VI op. 67; incidental music to Oedipus at Colonus [op. 93], and to Athalie [op. 74].
1846	His health declining amid a forbidding schedule of conducting obligations, Mendelssohn works feverishly at Elijah, whose 26 August premiere in Birmingham proves one of the greatest successes of Mendelssohn’s life. Medical concerns lead to his retirement from piano performance early in the year. Compositions: Lauda Sion [op. 73]; An die Künstler op. 68; Elijah op. 70 (rev. and pub. 1847).
1847	Mendelssohn continues to conduct the Gewandhaus concerts along with Gade. He collapses upon receiving news of his older sister Fanny’s death on 14 May. In October, he suffers a subarachnoid hemorrhage and never fully recovers. Mendelssohn dies on 4 November. Compositions: Three Motets op. 69; String Quartet no. 6 in F minor [op. 80]; pub. of Sechs Lieder op. 71; pub. of Sechs Kinderstücke op. 72 (incl. nos. dating back to at least 1842).

Abbreviations

KBB	Christian Martin Schmidt, ed., Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Kongreß-Bericht Berlin 1994 (Wiesbaden, 1997)
MC	Douglass Seaton, ed., The Mendelssohn Companion (Westport, CT, 2001)
MhW	Todd, R. Larry, ed., Mendelssohn and his World (Princeton, 1991)
MNI	Eric Werner, Mendelssohn: A New Image of the Composer and his Age, trans. Dika Newlin (London, 1963)
MQ	The Musical Quarterly
MSt	Todd, R. Larry, ed., Mendelssohn Studies (Cambridge, 1992)
NZfM	Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
PM	Carl Dahlhaus, ed., Das Problem Mendelssohn (Regensburg, 1974)
TMH	John Michael Cooper and Julie D. Prandi, eds., The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History (Oxford, 2002)