Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto, op 64

On the whole, it can be said that Felix Mendelssohn did quite well in his life, a very unusual issue among his romantic colleagues. The bad news is that it was very short. He only lived until age 38.
Born in Hamburg in 1809, a year before Chopin and two before Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy came from a family of bankers. His father was involved until 1811 in the banking business, running one of the most prestigious credit institutions in Europe. His mother, likewise, was the daughter of a prominent Berlin banker.

Mendelssohn: musician and painter
Felix was given his first piano lessons from his mother and soon showed great musical talent. When he turned eleven, his father Abraham ended up convincing himself of his son's extraordinary dispositions for music and, against all odds, coming from a person linked to business, he wrote the following sentence in a family letter: "Music will be for him perhaps a trade. "
And, so that the artistic formation of the son was complete, Abraham made Felix take lessons at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. Throughout his life, Felix would paint extraordinarily well, showing in his watercolours a prodigious technique.

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809 - 1847)

The sabbatical years
Parallel to music and painting lessons, Mendelssohn pursues studies of aesthetics, geography and history of the French Revolution at the University of Berlin. When he was 20 years old (four years ago he had already composed the overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream) his father gave him a sort of a sabbatical year but multiplied by three. Indeed, for three years, Mendelssohn was able to travel all over Europe, with no other purpose than to compose and getting acquainted with the music of other countries.
In addition, if he wanted to be back in Berlin, he could stay in the family's palace, in whose gardens stood a pavilion that could accommodate about one hundred attendees, and where the young Felix premiered several of his works, and where at one time he received a visit by Chopin, or by the poet Heine. (Despite having met in Paris, it is unlikely that Liszt had been one of the frequent guests at the Mendelssohn house, as Felix did not like him, to the point of asserting that Liszt had "many fingers but little brain").

Marriage

Cécile Jeanrenaud (1817 - 1853)

In full enjoyment of this generous life, the summer of 1836 Felix was fortunate to meet the beautiful Cécile Jeanrenaud, aged tender 17 years. It was love at first sight for both of them, without crises or setbacks of any kind, unlike their contemporaries Liszt, Chopin, Wagner or Berlioz, and, needless to say, poor Schumann. They got married the following year and, by all accounts, they were very happy. They had five children.

But as happiness does not last forever, in May 1847 his sister Fanny died suddenly from a stroke. This pain caused in turn a stroke in Felix, from which he partially recovered although the sequels led him to death six months later. The beautiful Cécile did not endure the pain. She outlived him for only six years.

Violin Concerto in E minor, Op 64
The idea of ​​this concerto arose during the summer of 1838. He wrote to his friend the violinist Ferdinand David: "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." But the project did not get off the ground until 1844, during family vacations in an idyllic place near Frankfurt when, in Felix's words, he only intended "... to eat and sleep, without tails, without a piano, without business cards, without carriages or jobs, but with donkeys, field flowers, ruled paper, sketchbook, Cécile and children."
But the concerto running through his head was mightier.
The premiere took place on March 13, 1845, at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, conducted by a Mendelssohn's fellow as the composer was too weak to do so.

Movements
The piece is in three movements, which follow on from each other without a pause:
00:00  Allegro molto appassionato (the movement that has made it famous)
13:30  Andante
20:52  Allegreto non troppo - allegro molto vivace...

The rendition is by the American violinist Hilary Hahn, accompanied by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the Estonian-born director Paavo Järvi.

Dear visitor, if you liked the article, we will be grateful if you share it, with an easy click