How I Discovered...MENDELSSOHN

[@fredcasden]

Like any great composer, Mendelssohn's music is unmistakable.

[@JoelBenson-to1yb]

David: Hawking your book is no crime. I've been listening to classical music since my aunt bought me an album containing the Unfinished Symphony and the Tchaikovsky first piano cto. I believe she got it from the A & P for 99 cents. Only recently discovered you and your videos and find them soul satisfying. You are a National Treasure. Stay healthy. Joel

[@elichenevert5958]

Quick shout-out to the Piano Trios! My favorite works by Mendelssohn; rich, beautiful, thrilling pieces!

[@loganfruchtman953]

Mendelssohn might be my favorite composer. I got into classical music again because of a concert I went to when I was 10. I’m 20 currently so about 10 years ago. The violinist Ray Chen and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under David Harding were in town and my grandparents took me. Going in I was expected to be bored but when Chen performed Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto I was blown away and I saw the limitless possibilities and stories of what classical music can tell. I used this story as part of my initial college essay. If I were a composer, I’d write my music like Mendelssohn.

[@gsaproposal]

Mendelssohn is my favorite composer. Terrific video, David.

[@HerewardTheW]

Wonderful video, David! Let's not also forget Mendelssohn's contributions as a conductor and musicologist. Where would Schubert's 9th be without him?

[@bbailey7818]

Or the Matthew Passion.

[@loganfruchtman953]

Or all of Bach’s repertoire in general

[@culturalconfederacy]

Ruy Blas Overture, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Elijah (which I saw live), the First Symphony, The Fair Mesulina, the Organ Sonatas and Second Piano Concerto are works I keep coming back to. His sister Fanny was also a talented composer. With his organ recitals so legendary in London, that it caused traffic jams on more than one occasion.

[@stevecook8934]

My introduction to Mendelssohn was the Violin Concerto performed by Zukerman, Bernstein, and the NYPHIL. It's still one of my favorites. Let's also remember the role Mendelssohn played, as conductor, in reviving interest in works such as Bach's St Matthew Passion, Beethoven's Violin Concerto, and Schubert's last completed symphony.

[@ericleiter6179]

I couldn't agree more about how he is not appreciated as much as he should be, and I also love his first numbered symphony...For me, my first exposure to Mendelssohn was the movie 'Breaking Away', I live in Indiana and this movie is legendary in my state. (Set and filmed in Bloomington, it is one of the earliest films for actors like Dennis Quaid and Daniel Stern, etc) but it is about the Little 500 bicycle race and during one scene there is a Mashup of the 1st and 4th movements of the Italian Symphony where he is trying to keep up with a semi-truck doing 70 mph, and I remember as a kid my dad telling me it was MENDELSSOHN, and I've loved him ever since!

[@harrycornelius373]

Your talk points out the difference between being aware of a composer and “ 12:04 discovering” a composer. Sometimes on one’s first contact with a composer one is gripped or enchanted. It’s revelatory. That happened to me with Debussy. For other composers, it may take deeper, wide listening to “discover” the composer, as opposed to a particular piece. I have yet to discover Mendelssohn though I have a number of recordings of his works. Similarly with Dvorak. When I was young I had a recording of the Dumky Trio which I loved along with a string quartet. I knew of the New World symphony but I did not see Dvorak as a composer, only individual pieces. Thanks to your inveterate promotion of Dvorak, I now have begun to “discover” him. I am beginning to think that one has only discovered (rather than uncovered) a composer when one can hear a piece of music by him, her, or they😊 for the first time and know who wrote it.

[@davidaiken1061]

It's interesting that as a child and adolescent I approached Mendelssohn's music without the biases of critics like Tovey or my college piano teacher who regarded Mendelssohn as a bourgeois prig. My mother encouraged me to acquaint myself with his most famous works, which I took to like a fish to water. The "Italian" Symphony (Solti/Israel, I can still see the cover of the LP), the "Scottish" (van (Maag/London), the Octet and the "Midsummer" Incidental Music. I also absorbed those Mendelssohn tunes used as soundtracks to Saturday Morning cartoons. Later, in High School, during my initial bout of enthusiasm for Handel Oratorios, I was delighted to learn that Mendelssohn wrote at least two and that they sounded rather surprisingly like Handel in places! It wasn't until that college piano teacher warned me about not liking Mendelssohn too much lest I exhibit "bad taste" that I stopped exploring his music. It was (don't laugh), von Karajan that revived my interest in the composer. Sometime in the 1980's I purchased his set of the complete symphonies and was blown away by my first encounter with Symphonies 1 and 2. I still think Herbie makes a better case for those works than most conductors, but I digress. I began to explore Mendelssohn's chamber music, beyond the Octet, and came to realize that here was a body of work to rival any other composer's output in that genre. The early String Symphonies were a major discovery that reinforced my growing recognition that Mendelssohn was the greatest "child prodigy" in the history of music. Where did those old prejudices denigrating his music as "facile" and superficial come from? The held up my exploration of this great composer for at least a decade.

[@ThreadBomb]

The Karajan disc of symphonies 3 and 4 plus the Hebrides overture is objectively terrific!

[@davidaiken1061]

@@ThreadBomb Yes, indeed. Karajan comes in for a lot of criticism, some warranted. But, overall, he was one of the giants of the podium. His Mendelssohn cycle, unexpected perhaps, is a real winner.

[@kevindanielson1908]

Mendelssohn has been one of my favorites since I was a child. I’d have to say my first exposure was a very old LP my mom had of the Midsummer Nights Dream overture and incidental music. Magical stuff that drew me in.

[@karmazopatarchin3704]

The Octet was one of the first pieces that really got my attention. That and the sheer beauty of Songs without Words etc... I think you are right about anti-Semitism infecting music critics' reception of his music which unfortunately persists to this day. It is also worth considering his enormous output given the shortness of his life. It might also be worth looking into his sister Fanny's contribution as a composer. She was discouraged by her family and society simply because she was a woman.

[@jimyancy6842]

I also came to Mendelssohn with the Fingal's Cave motif accompanying a dour little minah bird in cartoons. Also, the first symphony concert I ever attended as a high school student was the Cincinatti Symphony on tour. The first selection on the program was Fingal's Cave.

[@steveschwartz8944]

Same here. I knew certain excerpts from Elijah and Christus, MSND Overture, and the Italian, as well as bits and pieces that came my way. Later I got into the chamber music, the complete oratorios and other choral music. Also, reading Schumann influenced my view of Mendelssohn.

[@markzacek237]

Mendelssohn spoke to me in a unique way since my early childhood. When my parents would play the Hebrides, I would have to leave the room. I couldn't bear to hear it. It wasn't until my mid-teens that I could listen to it because I found it so haunting. I remember an RCA tv commercial from the 60s showing a stylus lowering to the LP grooves with the violin concerto pouring forth. I immediately had to know what that music was. My piano teacher played the opening of the Italian Symphony for my class and I literally jumped out of my chair, tipping it over. (My classmates thought that was hilarious.) Even the scampering scherzo (one of the 3 Fantasies or Caprices) of Dorothy fleeing the Winkies in The Wizard of Oz grabbed me. I could go on and on. He was speaking directly to me. I knew who this guy was. When I was a teenager and first reading the musical journals and literature, I was infuriated by the passing on of received (totally false) opinion that passed for criticism whenever the topic was Mendelssohn. Don't these people have ears? I wondered. We're still not past that, but it's getting better and you're certainly doing your bit for Mendelssohn, Dave! Thanks.

[@williammoreing3860]

Another wonderful video! Cheers!

[@toddschurk8143]

Oh, easy and unforgettable - Toscanini and the Italian symphony on the Victrola lp reissue about 1967. Melody and energy aplenty.

[@GastonBulbous]

I loved the Berlioz story. ❤️ For some composers, in my experience, it sometimes just takes an encounter with that one great recording to move me from simply being aware of a composer to being actively interested. For Mendelssohn, for me, it was Kubelik's recording of Midsummer Night's Dream.

[@hendriphile]

When I was 15, my dad (who was not into classical music), bought me my first component stereo system along with some records that were recommended at the store. They included Mendelssohn‘s piano concerti on Vox (Kyriakou), to this day my favorite recording of #1, one of my favorite Concertos. [The other disks were Sibelius #2 (Paray); Bartok violin Concerto-it was THE Bartok Concerto at that time- (Menuhin/Dorati); “Overture!“, single disk collection on Audio Fidelity; and the soundtrack to “Oklahoma.“ A wonderfully varied selection for a neophyte by the guy at the store!

[@d.r.martin6301]

My memory is a little fuzzy on this one. But back in my earliest days of record collecting I first encountered Mendelssohn in one of two forms. Either Heifetz's version of the Violin Concerto or Casals' "Italian" Symphony from Marlboro. Whichever it was, I was happy to make the composer's acquaintance.

[@ruramikael]

The Reformation Symphony is my favuorite.

[@tomstarzeck7137]

The violin concerto enraptured me as I caught it about midway through the 1st movement.. it took me about 30 seconds to grab a blank cassette and slap it in the deck and proceeded to record..and listening to it again and again..I was around 16 at the time.. the next work that got my attention was the reformation symphony that I had the privilege of preforming with the all county orchestra of Erie in 1984.. I am expanding my knowledge through many of your discussions about great music and composers.. thank you Dave for all you do!

[@The80sBoy]

Interesting talk, Dave. I had the same epiphany with Elgar. As a youngster I just didn't get his music: long, boring etc. However I heard a concert at the BBC Proms many years later and heard the violin concerto, and it was like the scales (!) were removed from my ears. The tunes, the orchestration, the depth and pathos were there in abundance. It was just like discovering a new composer and I happily dove into his music, and almost every day I'm finding gems. Almost like making up for lost time with Elgar! With music, never, ever, have closed ears.

[@OuterGalaxyLounge]

Breaking Away was the sleeper movie hit of 1979 and it very prominently featured the livelier parts of the Mendelssohn 4th symphony, which is probably when I first become very aware of the composer. I remember reviewing it for the high school newspaper and being disappointed at not finding the address of the hot girl in the class who was supposed to go with me. The days before Google maps were tough.

[@jimcarlile7238]

She didn't tell you where she lived? That alone sounds like an 80s movie.

[@johnsmith-bo8mh]

Some of the most beautiful sacred music

[@rg3388]

Encountered the Italian Symphony as a child. I seem to recall a story about Berlioz kicking himself for giving Mendelssohn the idea of writing such work, allowing Mendelssohn to beat him (and Harold in Italy) to the punch.

[@markzacek237]

Mendelssohn is frequently taken to task for having very mixed feelings about Berlioz's music -- as if it's a unique situation for one composer to be critical of another's music -- but I think the point is that, despite his discomfort with Berlioz's aesthetic, Mendelssohn performed Berlioz's music, presenting it to the public and allowing them to form their own opinion. There was generosity in the man and I think it shows in his music.

[@timyork6150]

Thanks for that illuminating video , Dave. The Hebrides Overture was present in my parents' wartime black box of 78s, so Mendelssohn has been on my musical radar screen since childhood. However, like many other people, I have tended to place him just below the top rank in emotional impact whilst acknowledging his superb craftsmanship and always enjoying his polished thematic material. The first eye (or ear) opener to a greater dimension came with Klemperer's superb recordings in the late 50s or early 60s of the Italian symphony and Midsummer Night's Dream. Quite recently I acquired a 12 CD box of Mendelssohn published by the French music magazine, Diapason, in its La Discothèque Idéale series. It consists mainly of historic recordings of very variable sonic quality (the 60s being about the most recent). In particular it contains a couple of performances which show me previously unsuspected strength in the music, namely the Reformation symphony with Mitropoulos and New York (rather fierce 1954 mono!) and the Ruy Blas overture with Bernstein and New York (1960). To my shame, I don't think that I have yet listened to everything in this box, especially the vocal music where Diapason provides no texts or translations (RANT)! I must get back to it and also acquire more of Bernstein's recordings of the orchestral music.

[@ThreadBomb]

Dave, you will be happy to hear that Mendelssohn was a great admirer of Spohr! I think the chamber music is where one can discover Mendelssohn's greatness. The symphonies, by contrast, give the impression of being one-offs (and of course in their conception they were). The Lobgesang is terrific, but so hard to get right in all aspects, and its symphony-plus-cantata structure can seem odd.

[@goonbelly5841]

A long long time ago, when I was a little bitty boy, my parents owned an LP by "easy listening" icon James Last playing his "happy music" arrangements of famous classical melodies. One melody that really stood out for me was the Andante from Mendelssohn's violin concerto. Many years later, the first Mendelssohn record that I bought was Salvatore Accardo's performance of the violin concerto.

[@jimcarlile7238]

Right now the idea of a spoiled rich kid doing great stuff in a cloistered physical atmosphere of warmth and talent sounds very appealing. We could use more of this I think in our own culture!

[@geraldparker8125]

You have such a knack for writing these kinds of books about composers. One composer returning to esteem (including your own admiration for him) is Luigi Cherubini. Gradually (and increasingly as time passes in recent decades) more and more book length studies and dissertations appear about Cherubini. However, there is rather little of a popular level oriented towards a large current "lay" listnership about Cherubini's wonderful music. It would be such a boon to music lovers to have sometlhing like a Hurwitz "Listening to Cherubini" and I suspect that the time is right for such a book and that there would be a fairly eager public for it. How's about it, Big Boy, are you up to the challenge (of course you are!)? Mendelssohn himself, of course, deeply revered Cherubini, that's the connexion that I would mention to motivate you in this context!

[@mikeminden1090]

I admit I needed to hear this.

[@mikaelbeskow9221]

Wonderful🎶

[@larrywallach2706]

The critical 'consensus' against Mendelssohn was given a lot of spin by Wagner, who of course said terrible things about "rootless" Jewish composers in general, and Mendelssohn in particular. The irony is that Wagner stole major material from Mendelssohn (and was heavily influenced by Meyerbeer, especially in Rienzi). The Flying Dutchman would not have existed without "Fingals Cave" (IMO) and the Rhine motive heard in the prelude to Das Rhinegold is lifted strait out of "The Fair Melusine" overture: its right there at the beginning. And Mendelssohn's music was thoroughly snuffed out in Germany under the Nazis. So he's had a lot to overcome. In mentioning his great masterpieces, I'd definitely add both piano trios! They are essential.

[@ThreadBomb]

Yes, I've read a story about Wagner at a concert that included the Hebrides Overture, to which he remarked "What a thief I was in my youth!"

[@richardsandmeyer4431]

No doubt the first Mendelssohn I heard was the Wedding March from MSND, but since I didn't didn't pay much attention to it or know who had written it, I don't think that counts as "discovering". Someone gave my parents an LP of the Oistrakh/Ormandy recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto coupled with the Mozart 4th VC. (After 50+ years of not hearing that recording, it turned up in the Ormandy mono box with the original album cover -- what a nostalgia trip!) That recording of the VC was the first Mendelssohn work that I really got "into". Later when I started my own record collection, I discovered the Italian, Scottish, Reformation, Octet, MSND, some of the chamber works, etc.

[@josefkrenshaw179]

Is the Mendlesohn complete solo concertos on BIS too short for one of the most important recording projects? It is an ear-opener for me

[@MGJS71]

I discovered Mendelssohn through his Op 65 Organ Sonatas - the most important organ music since 1750. Unfortunately they normally receive trivial performances by organists who have been infected by the anti-Mendelssohn virus. Sadly it seems the mephitic atmosphere of antisemitism is the problem.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

They are great works, absolutely.

[@MGJS71]

@@DavesClassicalGuide I sometimes wonder how Glenn Gould's plan to record the Mendelssohn Organ Sonatas would have turned out had he not abandoned it owing to difficulties (hypochondria?) returning to piano after his organ version of the Art of Fugue.

[@OlehZavadsky]

I’m discovering him right now so your video is so in time! At the first glance his music seemed to me rather conservative for his time. I keep discovering and what I’ve already heard really impressed me.

[@FREDGARRISON]

If anyone is interested, two Warner Brother cartoons that features Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture are THE LITTLE LION HUNTER and INKI AND THE MINAH BIRD. You can find find them here on KZbin. They have been banned from television because they have been deemed too racial. Just because a little African native gets the crap kicked out of him, makes it racial? Give me a break, it's only a cartoon. Tom (the cat) is always getting creamed by Jerry (the mouse) but that's not considered racial. Well anyway, GREAT VIDEO, DAVE !!!

[@knutanderswik7562]

For me it was his overture to Ruy Blas which I heard on the classical station that grabbed me, to judge from surviving piano and fairground organ rolls it used to be nearly up there with Poet and Peasant and William Tell but seems to have fallen off.

[@leestamm3187]

Not counting the wedding march and cartoon excerpts, my discovery was Bernstein's old 50's NYPO Italian that I picked up in a record store cutout bin sometime around 1970. (It's on KZbin and still sounds pretty good.) Also, who better to promote than yourself?

[@bivmvideo]

Same here. It was the WB cartoons.

[@jimcarlile7238]

It was the Walt Disney record for me, and the story about what a happy little privileged family they were as compared to Beethoven.

[@jeffheller642]

And speaking maligned Jewish composers why has Meyerbeer never been ripe for reissue?

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Because he wrote operas that are hideously expensive to produce and difficult to perform well, and most of the recordings aren't very good.

[@bbailey7818]

The Wedding March and Spring Song are two of those melodies which always seem to have existed and were more discovered than composed. Early record collecting exposed me to the three main symphonies, Violin Cto, overtures, etc. Thank God, I never paid attention to the critics, I always thought Mendelssohn was great, Reluctant Romantic though he may have been. Some of the Songs Without Words strike me as trivial though never as much or as fatuous as some of Liszt can be. I got to know Elijah (first through Ormandy's PO recording in English on RCA) and was disappointed when I got to St. Paul, self-consciously imitative of Bach. I've never much cared for the Lobesgesang though I admire the way he compressed the first three mvts of the symphony in a continuous progression which must have influenced later composers looking ahead to the 20th century. I came to the chamber music last, except for the full string version of the marvelous Octet (Toscanini's recording) and that might be the capstone of his achievement. His early death was a tragedy for music but when I heard Gardiner's DG recording of the intended revisions of it, Mendelssohn may have been on his way to ruining it, so there is that.

[@davidblackburn3396]

"The key is to simply give it time." This is wisdom. Thank you David.