Mendelssohn - The Piano Concertos - Kirschnereit, Beermann

 

Release Date: March 24, 2009 Label: Arte Nova Number of discs: 2 Composer: Felix Mendelssohn Performer: Matthias Kirschnereit  cd info/ buy

Review:

Kirschnereit is his own man when it comes to Mendelssohn and the piano. Typically, players emphasize the lyrical-romantic axis when playing Mendelssohn. The risk of focusing on that axis is mainly that Mendelssohn in his piano music can come off, sounding far too much like a German middle class, drawing room composer, with musical colors more often pastel than not, musical effects much more genteel than not. Kirschnereit knows enough to phrase those melodies with singing verve. However, he also adds punch. He prefers not to peddle any more than he has to, so his playing comes through with enormous clarity. These talents serve Mendelssohn as well as they have already served in that Arte Nova released complete set of Mozart piano concertos. Beyond the first two concertos, the additional lure of this set will be the reconstructed piano concerto in E minor, and the early student work for piano and string orchestra. That earlier music is just fine, though perhaps not as forcefully characterized as Mendelssohn's later music of large reputation. You can compare this early concerto with the contemporary Mendelssohn string symphonies, if you want to get a sense of their position in the composer's development. The reconstructed piano concerto is new, unfamiliar. Scholar Larry Todd edited two movements from extant Mendelssohn sketches and drafts, which were mostly complete. The composer broke off working on this, his pending third piano concerto, to write the entirely memorable Violin Concerto in E minor. Then he never quite got back to finishing up those drafts. The most controversial aspect of this reconstruction may be the editor's decision to use the final movement of the famous violin concerto, transcribed for keyboard solo with band, as the concluding movement. To my ears, it all sounds fine, true to the composer's style. Five stars, recommended.

 

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Mendelssohn - Complete Music for Cello - R.Lester, S. Tomes

Release Date: 11/14/2000 Label: Helios Number of discs: 1 Composer: Felix Mendelssohn Performer: Richard Lester, Susan Tomes cd info/ buy

Review:

This disc would have been welcome enough even without the tenderly nostalgic little unpublished Assai tranguillo (written by the 26-year-old Mendelssohn for his good young friend, Julius Rietz) recorded here for the very first time. Lasting only just over two minutes it ends inconclusively on the dominant, as if intended to preface something bigger. But brief as it is, I thought it no less of a gem than the Lied ohne Worte of 1845 described by Susan Tomes in her refreshing introductory note as "one of the most perfect and memorable" of its kind. I'm sure many collectors will also be as delighted as I was to renew acquaintance (after far too long) with the unjustly neglected Variations concertantes, specially composed in 1838 for the composer's younger brother, Paul, a keen amateur cellist although a banker-to-be. Both the "homely" (to quote Tomes again) D major theme and increasingly demonstrative figuration of the variations (not forgetting the penultimate presto edagitato in the minor) are so cunningly crafted as well as so quintessentially Mendelssohnian in spirit as to make it hard to believe he was still only 20 at the time. It is certainly these three works that allow the cellist and pianist to show their acutest telepathy as a duo. The two sonatas in their turn find them again very much on the composer's own imaginative wavelength. But hailing the Second as the more passionate of the two, Tomes draws attention to the torrents of keyboard arpeggios in the exultant outer movements that "almost overwhelm the singing lines of the cello". And except in the more lightly scored central movements in both, I did feel that balance did not favour the shyer Richard Lester. While sensitively mellowtoned and lyrical, his line at times seems to need stronger projection to match this very positive pianist's own musical conviction. Or could this be just a matter of their positioning in St Mary's Church, Hatfield Broad Oak? J.O.C.

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Felix Mendelssohn - Die erste Walpurgisnacht - Kurt Masur, Gewandhausorchester

Release Date: December 7, 1993 Label: Berlin Classics Number of discs: 1 Composer: Felix Mendelssohn Performer: Kurt Masur, Gewandhausorchester cd info/ buy

Review:

In 1830 Mendelssohn set out for Italy, making his last substantial stop, before moving south, in Weimar. He was warmly greeted by Goethe, now turned 80 and long since installed as the grand old man, but still with a sharp eye for a pretty girl and an insatiable delight in being entertained or instructed. Mendelssohn had to play to him for hours on end, and was courageous enough to insist on including some Beethoven, while the sage sat "in a dark corner, like a Jupiter Tonans, his old eyes flashing at me". Mendelssohn was to leave a vivid account in his letters of those days, the last occasion on which he was to see Goethe; and as they parted, he was given a page of Faust, cordially inscribed, and the text of a longish early poem which Goethe had vainly pressed on other composers, Die erste Walpurgisnacht. It has no connection with Faust, and takes the form of a dramatic ballad in which the poet attempts to rationalise the old tales of evil rites on the Brocken by inventing a story of Druids celebrating their forbidden rites suitably dressed to persuade interloping Christians that they were devils. Mendelssohn duly set it, and it was performed first in 1833, later in a revised version in 1843; for a time it was quite popular, including in England. One of the musicians Mendelssohn met in Italy was Berlioz, whose Faust had already been ignored by Goethe and whose wildness Mendelssohn found little to his wellorganised taste. His own musical account of these ferocious Druidic doings is mild indeed. There is a good, whirling overture (which might make a re-appearance in the concert hall from time to time) ; and the centre of the work is the chorus depicting the excited heathens rushing through the ravines of the Brocken rattling their staves and waving their torches. Previously, there has been an excellently written chorus depicting the heathens, set about with nerve-tingling pizzicato, creeping watchfully through the woods. But there is little sense of danger or of the allegedly sinister rites that send the Christian Guard running panic-stricken down the mountain; and well written though it is, the final C major chorus does not really crown this awkwardly shaped structure. Indeed, Goethe, whose judgement of music was very erratic, was not really conferring so great a favour as he hoped upon his well-loved young friend; and Mendelssohn was unable to provide the homage he no doubt intended to the great man whose admiration he had so deeply valued, and whom he was never to see again. The performances of this, and of the little scena which Mendelssohn composed for the London Philharmonic Society, are excellent, with particularly fine string playing from the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Kurt Masur: the chorus sing vehemently, though they are not very clearly recorded as far as their words are concerned; the soloists in the cantata deliver themselves of their lines effectively, and Edda Moser goes through suitable motions of dreadful despair in Infelice!.-- J.W. /Gramophone # Performer: Siegfried Lorenz, Edda Moser, Eberhard Büchner, Annelies Burmeister # Orchestra: Leipzig Radio Chorus, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig Radio Symphony Chorus # Conductor: Kurt Masur

 

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