Judge Dennis Davis
Mendelssohn: An Underrated Genius?

Judge Dennis Davis - Mendelssohn: An Underrated Genius?

- Good evening or good afternoon to everybody. I’m somewhat half in the dark, as you noticed, because South Africa continues to have these appalling levels of load-shedding. Situation that repairs when the Messiah comes, will be when we finally ended ourselves. Tonight, I want to talk to you about Felix Mendelssohn and the topic, of course, an underrated genius. Well, it’s an interesting thing. I remember very distinctly as a student when one used to speak about the composers who one heard and, obviously, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms. Obviously for me, Mahler sort of stood out. It’s the great composers who you wanted to go to the concert over here. Mendelssohn, many people who read would be regarded as a second string composer. What I wanted to suggest this evening is that that’s probably very unfair and that he was very much an underrated composer and that some of his works are already quite remarkable pieces of music. Obviously, you’ll appreciate that in the scope of one lecture like this. I’m not really able to do more than one scratch the surface. But more than that, just to choose a few pieces, which illustrate slightly the argument I want to develop in relation to him. But let’s start at the beginning because, of course, what is interesting about us who are on Lockdown University, right, is that having spent a lot of time looking at the intricate relationships between history, generally in Jewish history in particular, Mendelssohn is not an unimportant or an uninteresting character precisely because there is this whole issue with regard to him and his Jewish identity.

So just to give you the background, born in 1809, died in 1847. What is utterly remarkable about this is together with so many of these other geniuses like Mozart and Schubert, when he was 38 years when he died, but old, but yet quite an extraordinary uber of music which was produced during that time. Now, there are few differences between Mendelssohn, not unimportant ones either for our purposes, between Mendelssohn and other composers, in that he was born into a family of privilege and of means, and I’ll come back to it at in the moment. But there’s no doubt that from a very early age was apparent that we were dealing with someone with an extraordinary aptitude intellect for music. When he was six, he began taking piano lessons from his mother. After the family moved to Berlin, Felix and his three siblings studied piano. At the age of nine, he made his public debut. Between the ages of 12 and 14, he wrote 12 “Spring Symphonies” influenced by Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. And one of the things that I will mention a little later is his love for the fugue, which he essentially learned from teachers who inculcated into him the music of Bach. His first published work of piano quartet was written when he was 13. By 15, he’d written his own, his first symphony. In the following year, he completed his string octet in E-flat major, which was regarded as the work of real genius.

Overall, he composed over 100 works, again, remember he’s only 38 years when he died. The small scale keyboard works large scale operas and symphonies. One of the problems for Mendelssohn is almost the effortlessness in which he wrote and the fact that his symphony seemed to, as it emerged, much of his music seems to emerge without any grappling with the kind of difficulties which confronted the more famous composers such as Beethoven. Now, what is interesting about him in terms of his background, of course, there was Jewish heritage. When he was born, and we know this from the lectures that Trudy has given, and I don’t want to traverse these again. Of course, Jews were in a very marginalised position and his own life effectively reflects his maternal grandfather, Daniel Itzig, 1723 to 1799, worked within the status quo of serving as a banker to the Royal Court of Frederick the Great and obtained various privileges for his family and heirs. Privileges, I might add, which were enjoyed by other wealthy German Christian citizens. His paternal grandfather who we have confronted in many on many occasions in these lectures was, of course, Moses Mendelssohn.

And we know that he was a central Jewish philosopher of the Enlightenment period. Now, despite the kind of importance within the Jewish community of Moses Mendelssohn and Daniel Itzig, the reality was that many of these families felt under pressure to continue their Judaism in the late 18th century in Germany. And while two of Moses’s children retained the Jewish faith, two others converted to Catholicism, and the remaining two embraced Protestism. Felix’s Father, Abraham Mendelssohn was one of the latter. He embraced the Protestant faith and that was basically the faith which a young Felix was born into. At the age of seven, he was baptised into the Protestant faith. At about the same time, the family added the surname Bartholdy to the existing name to become Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The addition of the surname, which was urged on by other family members who had converted to Christianity, indicates to some extent the lengths to which people wanted to go to distance themselves from being identified as Jews. Now, whilst he was raised and remained a practising Protestant throughout his life, he didn’t receive any religious education in Judaism. It’s interesting that quite a few of his biographers suggest that he’s retained a substantial sense of his Jewish identity, something for which he would’ve certainly been aware in his daily life. And it is very interesting that if you look at his public career, yes, there were many anti-Semitic comments made about him.

But nonetheless, what is also interesting, which reflects back to his existential dilemma, is that he wrote two biblically-inspired oratorios produced in the last period of his life, the “Elijah” and “Christus” reflecting respectively the Old Testament of his Jewish heritage and the New Testament of the Protestant faith. So there is a sense in which Mendelssohn is a complex character from the religious point of view and cannot in a sense be entirely divorced in his Judaism. A few other factual questions, which I, well, aspects, when he was a teenager, he became great friends with the composer, Ferdinand David, who was a fine violinist and for whom Mendelssohn composes violin concerto. And I just wanted to mention that ‘cause I’m going to come back to that violin concerto. And it took him five years, during which time he regularly sought David’s advice and he gave the first performance in 1844, significantly the second performance, and we’ll listen to bits of the violin concerto shortly, was given by one of the greatest violinists who certainly became one of the greatest violinists of all time, which was Joachim, but he was 14 at the time he did it. Again, referring back as I’ve done to the conflicted engagement that Mendelssohn had with religion, he organised in 1829. You think about at that stage, a man of 20, he organised and conducted an what was regard as a claim.

It was a claimed performance of Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion,” which in fact until that time had been almost forgotten, to use perhaps an unfortunate religious term, he resurrected it. Success of that performance played an important role, again, in reviving Bach’s music, which in a sense, Mendelssohn was regarded as Fin Central. Again, biographical detail of importance is that he travelled a lot. I said to you that unlike other composers, he came from a wealthy family, he travelled 10 times to England. He was extremely popular in England, and, of course, he also went to Italy. And what is particularly interesting about these travels is whereas the travels to Britain produced the third symphony, the Scottish symphony and “Fingal’s Cave,” that sort of tone poem, if you wish. And the trip to Italy produced the Italian symphony, which I’m going to discuss in a moment. It’s also interesting that he was a very fine watercolour painter and a very, very fine conductor. He conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, of course, one of the great orchestras in the world from 1835. And when he was just 26, many of the programmes that he included when he works, included his own as well as important new composers such as the time, Richard Wagner. So we are talking about somebody who was in many ways a prodigy, somebody whose output was considerable, and yet somebody who now, when we think about it, doesn’t perhaps get the credit he deserves.

But let’s look at some of his music to take a slightly different spin on this. So I’ve chosen three pieces to look at this evening and I can’t even do those in totality. I’ll just give you clips of them. I’ve chosen the Italian symphony, “Symphony No. 4” because it’s very interesting for all sorts of reasons and probably is regarded by most musicologists, notwithstanding the third as his finest. I’ve chosen the violin concerto for reasons that are obvious and shall emphasise in a moment. And I’ve chosen the oratorio, “Elijah,” played less often, but which is when I again listened to large chunks of it today, just found it extraordinarily inspiring, even though it’s a very large work, which takes over two hours to actually complete. So let’s turn then, if I may, to the violin concerto. It’s very interesting. I mentioned Joseph Joachim talking about the violins. In 1906… Well, sorry, I’ve got the wrong way around. I do apologise. Let me start with the Italian symphony. I suddenly realised that I did it the other way around. Now, the Italian symphony was clearly inspired by his trip that he took to Italy in 1830, 1831. It’s interesting that he didn’t really have a high regard for Italians. He wrote at the time that Italians are mentally apathetic. They have really very disconnected from their religion. They have a dire attitude towards the Pope and the government, and they ridicule them, and they have a past that they’re actually are contemptuous of. And in fact, he said with a small wonder as a result of that, that Italians had such a low appreciation for art, a strange approach when he arrived there.

And yet he was clearly captivated by Italy. And the Italian symphony captures that magnificently. There’s no narrative in the symphony. You want, it’s almost a tone poem amalgamated as a symphony but what it does do, it provides the sheer joy, the excitement, the… As it were exciting life which he encountered, Mendelssohn, particularly in the rural areas of Italy. And therefore, this symphony is in very many ways a homage to Italy. Now, when you look at it, and we’ll only play some part of the first movement, it’s in pretty traditional form, it’s in sonata form, which means they’re two contrasting themes. We then get a development and then we get a recapitulation. But what is remarkable about this, and I don’t think I’ve managed to get that far in terms of giving you the clip, but when you listen to it in your own hands, note the way in which he seamlessly moves from the first theme, which starts with symphony in A-major to the second theme in E-major. It’s very hard to… And certainly, I didn’t pick that up, it’s sort of I’ve read, but if you listen to it very carefully, you can care. Very hard to see the change in key because it’s so effortlessly done, so remarkably done. The other point about it that I wanted you to highlight and I do want to emphasise is the rhythmic start. It’s quite a remarkable start to the symphony, it’s reflection of considerable joy.

We burst out into excitement in relation to the way in which he embraces Italy. And I wanted to just play two parts of the symphony to reflect that the opening, which as I say, there’s absolutely no faffing around, there’s no quiet, slow introduction. We almost burst out of the gate into this rhythmic kaleidoscope of music, which reflects in so many ways the vitality, which Mendelssohn encountered within rural Italy. Now, I’ve got here a recording from Georg Solti, only the first four minutes, but hopefully you’ll get the sense of what I’m talking about, the vitality, the rhythmic nature of it, the way in which Mendelssohn quite remarkably in so many ways actually starts the theme. We then hear fragments of the theme and then he revamps it again, all in a manner which because he does so effortlessly is perhaps one of the reasons that he isn’t regarded as the genius that he really is. Because this really is in many ways a wonderfully uplifting work. Let us hear the first four movements of the first… First four minutes of the first movement of the Mendelssohn Italian. Okay, Emily, we can stop there. Thank you. We could carry on but what I wanted to illustrate to you, as beautiful as this is, I mean, just extraordinarily extroverted it is in its opening. The way in which, you know, you start and the violins are literally off, you know, like to the races if you wish. In fact, one particular commentator said it was almost like starting a horse race. Boom, out they go. The violins with the first theme over kind of propulsive repeated set of notes, which are by the woodwinds. And then you’ll have noticed, just as I said, he fragments that theme, bringing it back in various ways until it comes back even more powerfully. It’s a remarkable piece of energetic music.

I mean, the energy of that perhaps parallels in many ways, something that I spoke to you about last week, which was the seventh symphony by Beethoven. It’s compared pretty favourably when you think about that rhythmic energy that emerges out of that. I want, if I may, to move on because of time and just then pick up the last three minutes of the last movement of the fourth movement because in many ways that’s the most Italian of the lot. It essentially is as they described a tarantella, which is interesting because in musical terms, my understanding was that if you were bitten by a form of spider, one went into a convulsive process and somehow if you kind of danced in a way with people who were in a similar convulsive process, somehow went out of the system and then became a famous Italian form of dance. And he clearly saw these dances as kind of convulsive dance in the rural areas of Italy when he visited there. So we picked this up with the last few minutes of the movement, of the fourth movement of this Italian symphony. So it’s very interesting, apart from the fact that this is probably the most Italian of all of the parts of the symphony. Mendelssohn called this movement a sala… Let me pronounce it properly. Saltarello, a traditional dance coming back from the four… Merging from the 14th century. What is so interesting is the way this drives rhythmically towards the end.

And then just as we come to the end, it’s almost if the dance has reached a point of exhaustion because the orchestra suddenly is reduced to nothing more than the whispering theme of the first violins before it ends with its crescendo. It really is one of the most exciting, joyous, and joyful symphonies that one could wish to hear. And it really is when, as I’ve tried to indicate, so carefully crafted that it belies as it were the genius of the composer who did it. Now, talking about that, let us come then to the very famous violin concerto of Mendelssohn, which of course nobody could exclude if one was discussing him. During the summer of 1838, he wrote to Ferdinand David, he said, “I should like to write a violin concerto for you next winter. One in E-minor runs through my head, the beginning of which gives me no peace.” And indeed it didn’t give him peace 'cause it took him almost six years to finally complete it. And of course he consulted David regularly throughout this particular process. But it’s interesting that this, as much as it gave him struggle, Joachim, speaking in 1906, said this of it and the other famous violin concertos, “The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest most uncompromising is Beethoven’s.” I probably need to do electro on that alone. It’s so wonderful. “The one by Brahms vies for it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive was written by Max Bruch, but the most inward, the heart’s jewel is Mendelssohn’s.”

And I would hope you would feel that when you, as you’ve often I’m sure done listen to it. It really is ranks with these… It ranks as one of the great violin concertos of the repertoire. It is interesting that it was a product of a much more mature Mendelssohn. It was completed in 1845, 2 years before his death, even though, as I said, he battled with for a long time. And whilst as Joachim said, it might not have been the greatest violin concerto ever written or even the most profound, it certainly had a very significant influence on the genre of violin concerto in the repertoire but there’s something more about it. Because the overall effect of it is it makes it one of the most effective violin concertos that one could wish to hear. I am not able… I mean, again, I’d like to play the whole thing, but it’s like 30 minutes and I couldn’t do that in one lecture. But obviously you’ll listen to it yourselves. But it is interesting that it retains a three movement concerto structure along with a typical sonata-allegro form in the first movement. But there are two aspects to it that I’d like to draw your attention to, maybe three, which I think are particularly significant. It’s the one concerto which backs the trend. When you sit down to listen to a violin concerto, the first thing that normally happens is the orchestra had the first word. It’s given the presentation of the principle and possibly even a secondary theme. And we could all sit there waiting for quite a few minutes before the soloist makes its entry.

And then you get a kind of double exposition form, an orchestral exposition of the theme, a solo exposition of the theme. And then finally, the actual development part of the sonata-allegro takes place in a dialogue between the two. Oh, no, not for Mendelssohn. Again, as it were in parallel to the comments I’ve just made about the Italian symphony, the soloist comes in immediately. It’s true that in Beethoven’s fourth and fifth piano concertos, the soloist does commence. But it’s a very brief commencement before the orchestra takes over. Here, observe how Mendelssohn nets the solo violin in a sense present the entire memorable E-minor melody right from the beginning. And the orchestral strings then, in a sense are a supplement. They decorate it, the orchestra gets its turn, but only after the full solo statement. There’s no need for this double exposition because he places the violin at the central core of the entire process. One other aspect, which is not in the clip but I wanted to draw attention to, which is most unusual, is as we all know, when we get to the end of the first movement, there’s generally a cadenza, which is written and it’s written sometimes by the composer, sometimes by a famous violinist to show off as it were the skill of the violinist in the concerto.

In the case of Mendelssohn’s unique is that the cadenza comes quite early on. It’s right centrally in the first movement and doesn’t come at the end. It’s integrated into the process in a way that no other concerto of its kind does. So it has these remarkable features, but it also has a beautiful haunting quality, which essentially is introduced immediately by the violin as we shall see here. Those of you who are musically literates can read the music in the clip, which comes below. But here we go with Hilary Hahn playing the first part of the first movement of this magnificent concerto. Paavo Jarvi being the conductor. I just playing the beginning of that. But I mean, it’s absolutely magnificent and I often wonder when I listen to that, whether am I being entirely kind of unreasonable to think there’s something Jewish about that almost haunting beginning, which is absolutely so magnificent? And you can see what I meant by the fact that it’s the violin in this concerto more than any other to my mind that sort of takes the lead in this remarkable fashion. And it truly is. I think Joachim is right. It’s one of the great concerto. And again, going back to my theme, Mendelssohn is underrated because people don’t give perhaps sufficient weight to all of the music which he has composed. And in particular this. Let me, again, in the interest of time, move on to one final piece that I wanted to discuss. I could have dealt with many of these songs.

Of course, I was very tempted to play the “Wedding March” to end, which I’m sure everybody knows 'cause probably everybody had it with their weddings or the “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” But I’ve chosen to concentrate just finally on one of the oratorio, which is the “Elijah” oratorio, which let me say a few things about this. So this is what the English consort at the time, Albert, wrote to Mendelssohn, who as I said was extremely popular in England. “To the noble artist who, surrounded by the Baal-worship of the false, has like a second Elijah employed his genius and his skill in the service of the true, who has won our ears with all that is harmonious and pure to the great masters held in his firm control and revealed to us not only the gentle whisperings of the breeze, but also the majestic thundering of the tempest.” That’s what Prince Albert said to Mendelssohn when it was played, and interesting enough, played with an English text for the first time, given his popularity in England. Let me say a little bit more about it before I play you, and we play out on about five minutes of this two-hour piece. I think it’s probably true that when Mendelssohn came to write this and recall that he had a particular affinity, or if you wish to call it church music, as I indicated to you, he conducted the first performance of Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion” since the composer’s death, some 79 years earlier.

It is also true that his contemporaries, Berlioz, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner had faced a 19th century challenge of appealing to an increasing middle class, a much more diverse audience than the formal snobbish, snotty, homogeneous, upper class audiences that the earlier classical composers had to deal with. Of course, it’s true that the great disruptor was the man we spoke about last week. That’s Beethoven. And in fact, it’s also true that with this disruption, a new form of romantic music came in. But it also say that Mendelssohn and many of these colleagues that I’ve just spoken about did start creating forms of programmatic music. And in a sense, Mendelssohn used two forms, the chorale and large instrumental works with chorale-like finales to advance themes of reconciliation and of brotherhood. In that way, he did follow Beethoven. And of course, as I’ve indicated, he selected biblical texts for his two great oratorios, exemplifying his embrace of both the Old Testament, his Jewish background, and his Protestantism but, of course, the other one being “St. Paul.” The Mendelssohn began the libretto for the “Elijah” in 1838 but it was in 1845 that finally it came to life and it came to life in England. It is in two parts, even each with its own climax.

Part one, which we will listen to, begins with solemn chords that will later convey the word of God. There’s an overture which paints a fearsome picture of the effect of a drought on the Jewish people and carries into the choral fugue, “Help, Lord! Will thy destroy us?” in the slow tempo is that of the dying as they make their way along a winding path through the arid desert. And a faith in a merciful God collides with their experience of essentially suffering under what they consider to be a wrathful God. And that’s the sort of engagement which Mendelssohn set out in the first part. Of course, it’s also true that Elijah then performs a series of miracles for the people. And whilst they’re rejecting is a troublemaker, there is a sort of a kind of difficult relationship between Elijah and the people, which is set out in the first part of the libretto. And then the second… Sorry, of the oratorio. And the second part, God comforts those who follow His commandments. And there’s a soprano’s contemplating “Hear ye, Israel,” which opens the movement and responds by virtue of kind of affirming the fact that through Elijah, it is God who will save the day. Now, it’s two hours and 15 to two hours and 20 minutes. It’s a very long piece. So what I’ve chosen to do is just give you a taste by looking at the overture and the first part of the plea to God, which is a massive chorus, a massive choir as you shall see.

SONG BEGINS

♪ Help, Lord ♪ ♪ Help, Lord ♪ ♪ Help, Lord ♪ ♪ Wilt Thou quite destroy us ♪ ♪ Help, Lord ♪ ♪ The harvest now is over, the summer days are gone ♪ ♪ And yet no power cometh to help us ♪ ♪ And yet no power cometh to help us ♪ ♪ The harvest now is over, the summer days are gone ♪ ♪ And yet no power cometh to help us ♪ ♪ And yet no power cometh to help us ♪ ♪ The harvest now is over, the summer days are gone ♪ ♪ And yet no power cometh to help us ♪ ♪ And yet no power cometh to help us ♪ ♪ Will then the Lord be no more God in Zion ♪ ♪ And yet no power cometh to help us ♪

SONG ENDS

• Okay, Emily, I think we can stop. I just wanted to give you a feel, I’m sorry, it’s slightly not as loud as it should be, but let me just read you the text here. “Help, Lord! Wilt Thou quite destroy us! The harvest is now over, the summer days are gone, and yet no power comes to help us! Will then the Lord be no more God in Zion? The deeps afford no water and the rivers are exhausted. The suckling tongue’s now cleaveth for thirst to his mouth. The infant child ask for bread. And there’s no one breaketh it to feed him or her.” So that’s what they were singing and it really is a very sophisticated and wonderful piece of music. And again, it fits in with my general thesis that if you listen to it, and I hope you will, you may agree with me that, again, it does confirm for me particularly the fact that he was able to write a complex two-hour and 15-minute oratorio on the sort of general recordings, between that and 220, chose the sophistication of the composer. Let me just then, in conclusion, see if there are any questions.

Q&A and Comments:

You’re quite right, Pamela. He had a considerable song composer along with his sister Fanny. She’s overlooked and you’re to rebuke me for that 'cause Fanny’s often overlooked and was very, very talented and clearly was a reflection of a very sexist society.

Maria, it was the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, and I’ve just now forgotten who the conductor was, I do apologise, but it was the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra who played the tarantella.

Q: Do you have any thoughts, Jennifer, about the pace of flowering geniuses between the three short-lived composers?

A: Well, I mean, Mendelssohn died of a form of a haemorrhage. Oddly enough, he’s… Oddly enough. Sadly enough, his sister died at 42 from a similar condition. And I mean, you know, the tragedy is of course that those time, many people did die young and included very, very talented composers. All one can ask oneself is in all three cases, what would they have written if they had lived for another 20 years? I mean, Schubert in particular, if you look amongst many of his work, particularly the ninth symphony, I just marvelled that someone at 31 years old could have written something of such sophistication and brilliance.

Thank you very much, Ruth. And rather and yes, it is a magnificent, the violin concerto. It’s fantastic and it just makes one fall in love with the violin.

Erica, thank you so much. Yeah. No, his parents, I mean, the father was Jewish. Yes, there was conversion, mother wasn’t, and so you can’t regard him as Jewish on any eloquent basis. Not quite sure what the law return would say about that, given the past amendments, but that’s for another day. Thank you very much to everybody and thank you for listening. We will be doing some further music lectures along the way, but I think you’d agree with me that Mendelssohn definitely pays more than a casual visit. Goodnight to everybody.