Mendelssohn: 3. Sinfonie (»Schottische«) ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: 3. Sinfonie a-Moll op. 56 (»Schottische«) ∙ (Auftritt) 00:00 ∙ I. Andante con moto – Allegro un poco agitato 00:24 ∙ II. Vivace non troppo 17:58 ∙ III. Adagio 22:30 ∙ IV. Allegro vivacissimo – Allegro maestoso assai 32:38 ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester – Frankfurt Radio Symphony ∙ Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Dirigent ∙

19 January: Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 Was Premiered

By Georg Predota, Interlude

Saint-Saëns, 1875

On 19 January 1873, the French cellist, viola da gamba player and instrument maker Auguste Tolbecque premiered Camille Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33, a work specifically composed for him. Tolbecque was a close personal friend, and the solo cellist of the Conservatoire orchestra. He was a composer himself, and also a published music historian. Tolbecque was influential in the performance of early music as he conducted research into historical instruments and their restoration.

Saint-Saëns as a boy, 1846

His compositions tend to be light in style and influenced by Mendelssohn and Schumann. Tolbecque retired before he was able to produce a recording, and he does not figure prominently in the review of the Saint-Saëns concerto published in the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris immediately after the premiere. “If Mr. Saint-Saëns should decide to continue in this vein,” the reviewer wrote, “which is consistent with his violin concerto, the Trio in F, and other works of lesser significance, he is certain to recover many of the votes that he lost with his all-too-obvious divergence from classicism and the tendencies in a number of his recent works. We must say that the Cello Concerto seems to us to be a beautiful and good work of excellent sentiment and perfect cohesiveness, and as usual the form is of greatest interest.” 

Auguste Tolbecque

At the time Saint-Saëns composed his first Cello Concerto he had already reached the age of thirty-seven. He was highly regarded in French musical circles, but as a composer he was still searching for his breakthrough work. He clearly possessed a mastery of compositional technique, and his ease, ingenuity, naturalness and productivity was compared to “a tree producing leaves.” Although he was living in a period of extreme musical experimentations, Saint-Saëns remained stubbornly traditional. Romain Rolland wrote in 1908, “He brings into the midst of our modern restlessness something of the sweetness and clarity of past periods, something that seems like fragments of a vanished world.” In his first Cello Concert, Saint-Saëns takes a deliberate stance away from what the critic calls “the (modernist) tendencies in a number of his recent works.” His unmistakable melodic charm and characteristic freshness and vitality are clothed in a formal clarity that undoubtedly accounts for the widespread popularity the 1st Cello Concerto enjoyed from the very onset. 

Opening of Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1

For Saint-Saëns, “form was the essence of art.” As he once wrote, “the music-lover is most of all enchanted by expressiveness and passion, but that is not the case for the artist. An artist who does not feel a deep sense of personal satisfaction with elegant lines, harmonious colors or a perfect progression of chords has no comprehension of true art.” As the anonymous critic had written after the premiere, “it should be clarified that this is in reality a “Concertstück,” since the three relatively short movements run together. The orchestra plays such a major role that it gives the work symphonic character, a tendency present in every concerto of any significance since Beethoven.” Saint-Saëns might have been looking at Franz Liszt, a composer he greatly admired, as the three movements of the concerto are interconnected. In fact, the principle theme is sounded in legato running triplets, and it appears in all movements of the concerto. 

Saint-Saëns, circa 1880

Sir Donald Francis Tovey later wrote “Here, for once, is a violoncello concerto in which the solo instrument displays every register without the slightest difficulty in penetrating the orchestra.” The orchestra clearly plays a role beyond that of mere accompaniment, “as this work never succumbs to the imbalance frequently encountered in cello concertos whereby for long stretches the soloist is seen bowing furiously but is scarcely heard.” As Saint-Saëns tellingly suggested, “Virtuosity gives a composer wings with which to soar above the commonplace and the platitudinous.” Uniting the lyrical quality of the cello with instrumental virtuosity and carful orchestral scoring produced a work valued by performers and loved by audiences. But what is more, a good many composers, including Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff considered Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 to be the greatest of all cello concertos.

Five of the Angriest Classical Music Feuds

 By Emily F. Hogstad, Interlude

Artistic types are famous for their big personalities and the beef and rivalries that result. Over the centuries, classical composers have had more than their fair share of tiffs. Today we’re looking at the stories and personalities behind five of the most famous feuds in classical music history.

Salieri v. Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri © slavicwritings.com

Everyone who saw the 1984 movie “Amadeus” knows the story. Antonio Salieri was a mediocre composer who was blindingly jealous of his young and impish colleague, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In fury, he sabotages his career – and ultimately, his life.

That said… It’s not true. In real life, Salieri was a generally well-liked and well-regarded man, and a prolific and talented composer. He even taught Mozart’s son after Mozart died. And he didn’t poison Mozart.

The core of the legend came from letters that Mozart and his father wrote to each other in the 1780s, positing the existence of an “Italian cabal” that was seeking to block Mozart’s ascendance. The Mozart men were irritated that the Austrian court gave such prominence to the work of Italians; they believed that Austrian artists should reign supreme at court. This wider feud between Italian and Germanic styles of music persisted long after Mozart and Salieri, and perhaps consequentially, a rumor arose after their deaths that Salieri outright poisoned Mozart. So there was indeed a feud between the two composers, but it was a bit one-sided, and it wasn’t as dramatic – or deadly – as Hollywood suggests. 

Brahms v. Wagner

Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner © operalibera.net

After Beethoven’s revolutionary contributions to orchestral music, composers had to make tough decisions about how they would respond. Would they continue to embrace and refine the more instrumental-based genres that Beethoven had embraced, like the symphony or the sonata? Or would they throw out the old rule book and push forward to create new musical concepts and languages, as seen in program music? What genre would win the battle for cultural relevance: symphonies or operas?

This argument grew incredibly heated in the mid-1800s and became known (perhaps a bit melodramatically) as the War of the Romantics. Generally speaking, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, and Robert and Clara Schumann were seen as the “conservatives” in this struggle, while figures like Liszt, Berlioz, and Wagner were seen as the “radicals.” A great deal of ink was spilled delineating the positions of the two camps. In the end, Wagner never wrote a symphony, and Brahms never wrote an opera.

Although their music was very different, Brahms appreciated at least some of Wagner’s music. “I’m the best of Wagnerians,” he told his friends in private. He even collected original Wagner manuscripts (much to Wagner’s irritation). That said, Brahms wasn’t such a fan of the loud extra-musical opinions that Wagner blared in various screeds and pamphlets.

Debussy v. Ravel

Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel © wfmt.com

The music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel is often jammed together on compilation discs with titles like “French Impressionism.” But just because the two men were writing music at the same time in the same city doesn’t mean they were best friends.

They met around 1900 when Debussy’s stepson Raoul Bardac, a classmate of Ravel’s, introduced them. Ravel was thirteen years younger and at a different stage of artistic and professional development than Debussy was, and Ravel admired the older man’s work intensely, to the point where he was criticized in the press for copying Debussy too closely.

In 1903, a hubbub arose when Debussy wrote a piece that seemed to be inspired by the Spanish-sounding strains in Ravel’s music. It was understandable for a younger man to copy an older one, the train of thought went, but should the older one be the composer copying the younger one? Then in 1913 the two – without knowing the other one was embarking on the same project – set some of Stéphane Mallarmé’s new poetry to music, before the poetry had been published. Their mutual distrust grew.

Another scandalous issue closer to home had caused the two composers to drift apart emotionally. Raoul Bardac introduced his (married) mother to (the married) Debussy…and the two fell in love and ran off together. Debussy’s first wife was left without a husband, and Ravel was one of the Parisians who made a financial contribution to her. The feud became official. 

Mendelssohn v. Liszt

Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn

We wrote an entire article about the rivalry between Felix Mendelssohn and Franz Liszt! But to make a long story short, these two men got caught up in the War of the Romantics, just like Brahms and Wagner did. On a more personal note, Liszt once rewrote portions of Mendelssohn’s G-minor piano concerto, which understandably greatly irritated Mendelssohn. They also had an encounter at a salon gathering that could easily have turned into a disaster, when Liszt debuted yet another arrangement that he’d made of one of Mendelssohn’s work, the Capriccio, Op. 5…but Mendelssohn managed to smooth it over by joking afterward and congratulating Liszt on his extraordinary performance. 

Stravinsky v. Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky, 1920 © History of Music Facebook Page

Stravinsky and Prokofiev are often mentioned in the same sentence simply because they both were Russian composers, born in 1882 and 1891 respectively. But just like in the case of Ravel and Debussy, that didn’t guarantee they got along.

Although Stravinsky once magnanimously praised Prokofiev’s ballet “Chout” as “the single piece of modern music [he] could listen to with pleasure”, the relationship eventually deteriorated. By the following year, when “Chout” was being run through for a possible revival, Stravinsky started an argument with Prokofiev, telling him he was wasting his time writing opera. The younger man retorted that Stravinsky “was in no position to lay down a general artistic direction” since Stravinsky himself “was not immune to error.”

Prokofiev later described what came next: Stravinsky “became incandescent with rage” and “we almost came to blows and were separated only with difficulty.”

Mantovani & His Orchestra - On Wings of Song(Mendelssohn)

The Widows of Bach, Mozart, and Mendelssohn: What Happened to Them?

by Emily E. Hogstad

Music lovers have always been fascinated by a good composer’s death story. Beethoven supposedly raised his arm in defiance of a thunderstorm while on his deathbed. An entire mythology arose surrounding Mozart’s final illness (“was he poisoned?”). Bach’s Art of Fugue remains famously and tantalizingly unfinished, interrupted by the composer’s death.

However, historians tend to stop following the story once the composer dies. But have you ever wondered what happened to the composer’s families after their deaths? How did their widows keep their composer-husband’s music alive? And in eras before social safety nets, how did they survive…especially if they had kids?

Here’s what happened to three of classical music’s most famous widows after their husbands died:

Anna Magdalena Bach, 1701-1760. Married Bach in 1721.

Anna Magdalena Bach © www.bachueberbach.de

Anna Magdalena had just turned twenty when she married the widower J.S. Bach. In doing so, she became a very young stepmother to four surviving children, aged thirteen, eleven, seven, and three, all from his first marriage. Soon she began having biological children of her own. She would have thirteen in all, with seven dying very young.

When her husband died, Anna Magdalena Bach was forty-eight years old. She had been an accomplished professional singer in her youth, but she was in no position to restart her performing career…not to mention, she still had several minor children to raise!

Unfortunately, Bach hadn’t left enough money for them all to live on. She was left a portion of his estate, but J.S. Bach’s children, including his adult sons who were pursuing careers of their own, also got a cut of the assets, too. And alarmingly, the city of Leipzig only granted Anna Magdalena custody of her children on the condition that she not marry again, guaranteeing their future destitution.

Her stepson C.P.E. Bach was apparently the only child who stepped in to provide financial assistance, but it did not keep her from sinking into extreme poverty. She was evicted from her home and needed assistance from the city government to survive. She died a decade after her husband and was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave. 

Constanze Mozart, 1762-1842. Married Mozart in 1782.

Constanze Mozart

Mozart’s wife Constanze was twenty-nine years old when her husband fell ill and died, leaving her with two children, debts, and few prospects. She roused herself from her grief to line up support for herself, seeking out a pension from the emperor and organizing memorial concerts. She was a singer, and she put her musical abilities to use when she started publishing her dead husband’s works. Eventually, she grew to become a wealthy woman.

Six years after Wolfgang’s death, she took in a tenant named Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, a diplomat, and a writer. Romance blossomed. Rather scandalously, they moved in together the following year. They married in 1809, with von Nissen taking on the role of stepfather and helping Constanze with the administration and promotion of Mozart’s legacy.

Nissen’s last project was a Mozart biography, with which Constanze assisted. Nissen died before it was finished, but she made sure it was published, and it became an important source of Mozart lore. She lived in Salzburg along with two of her sisters, also widowed, and died in 1842 at the age of eighty. 

Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy, 1817-1853. Married Mendelssohn in 1837.

Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Twenty-seven-year-old composer Felix Mendelssohn met nineteen-year-old singer Cécile Jeanrenaud in 1836 while he was conducting the Cecilia Choir in Frankfurt. They got engaged that September and were married in March 1837, and had five children together in Leipzig.

Unfortunately, tragedy hit the family in May 1847, when Felix’s beloved sister Fanny died suddenly and without warning of a stroke. Felix was deeply affected by her death, and he died in November 1847, also from a stroke. Cécile was only thirty.

Clara Schumann went to be with her and wrote: “She received me with the tenderness of a sister, wept in silence, and was calm and composed as ever. She thanked me for all the love and devotion I had shown to her Felix, grieved for me that I should have to mourn so faithful a friend, and spoke of the love with which Felix always had regarded me. Long we spoke of him; it comforted her, and she was loath for me to depart. She was most unpretentious in her sorrow, gentle, and resigned to live for the care and education of her children. She said God would help her, and surely her boys would have the inheritance of some of their father’s genius. There could not be a more worthy memory of him than the well-balanced, strong, and tender heart of this mourning widow.”

She kept her two daughters with her and sent her three sons to be raised by her in-laws in Berlin. Her son Felix died in 1851, compounding her grief, and she herself died of tuberculosis in 1853, leaving behind several children aged eight to fifteen.

Itzhak Perlman - Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) - Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844) 1. Allegro molto appassionato (00:00) 2. Andante (13:02) 3. Allegretto non troppo -- Allegro molto vivace (21:05) Itzhak Perlman, violin

The Coming Joy: Raff’s Ode au Printemps

by Maureen Buja 

Joachim Raff

Considered during his lifetime the premier symphonist of the day, Joachim Raff (1822-1882) has now virtually vanished from our concert stages. He was encouraged by Mendelssohn and his scores, sent to his publisher by Mendelssohn, got the approval of Robert Schumann in his reviews in his music journal.

Liszt was an admirer and asked Raff to join him in Weimar, where from 1850 to 1856, Raff was part of the Liszt household. Eventually, Raff tired of Liszt’s overbearing personality, but while he was in Weimar, was able to create his own musical voice, poised somewhere between the conservatism of the Mendelssohn / Schumann camp and the revolution of the Liszt / Wagner camp.

Entirely self-taught, his breakthrough came in 1863 when both his First Symphony and a cantata won prizes that brought him to the attention of the concert-going world. He became the founding director of the Hoch Academy in Frankfurt in 1877. The Hoch Academy was important not only for employing Clara SchumannTra but also for holding special music classes just for women. As a composer, he wasn’t merely a symphonist but also wrote operas, choral pieces, chamber music, songs, and, above all, works for the piano.

Tra Nguyen

His 1857 work Ode to Spring, is described as a ‘morceau de concert.’ He wrote it in Wiesbaden, six months after having left the Liszt household in Weimar. He now had musical independence and a fiancée, Doris Genast. The work is dedicated to Betty Schott, the wife of Wagner’s publisher, and she performed it in 1860 under its first title: Frühlingshymne (‘Spring Hymn’), described as a Caprice symphonique. Schott published it in 1862 as Ode au Printemps.

It’s not an ode to Spring having arrived, it’s an ode to the coming of Spring. The opening Largetto is atmospheric before the piano joins with a long cantabile melody. The piano is then joined by a solo cello and then the full orchestra. It is in the Presto section that Spring arrives with its exuberance and energy. A brass fanfare announces the true arrival of the season. The end of the work is calmer, sunlit, and closes with a flourish.

Yuja Wang: Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25 [HD]

20,430 views  Aug 1, 2021  Verbier Festival, Salle Médran. Verbier Festival Orchestra conducted by Kurt Masur Jul 31 2009

Here Wang is of similar age as the orchestra players. Verbier host Charlotte Gardner describes Masur as "Mr. Mendelssohn". https://www.facebook.com/1663099812/v...

In 2009 Masur was already affected by Parkinson's disease, and he would pass away in 2015 from the disease.

0:00 Molto allegro con fuoco in G minor

6:57 Andante in E major

12:00 Presto—Molto allegro e vivace in G major

#YujaWang #Mendelssohn #Verbier #KurtMasur

Buried Treasures: Felix Mendelssohn: Concerto for Piano, Violin and Strings in D Minor (1822)

by Georg Predota 

Felix Mendelssohn

When Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) died at the incredibly young age of thirty-eight, he simply had not yet made arrangements for literally hundreds of unpublished musical manuscripts and artworks, alongside thousands of personal letters to and from the composer. During his lifetime, and for a short period thereafter — with a large number of music published during a period of two years following his death — Mendelssohn was almost universally lauded musical genius. What is more, Mendelssohn was also the artistic director and chief conductor of The Gewandhaus (Garment House) in Leipzig, a venue that has long been recognized as one of the most important performing centers in Europe. Under his tutelage and leadership, the Gewandhaus Orchestra became a cultural institution. Mendelssohn not only initiated the revival of music by Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart, he also assured that his brand of musical historicism was disseminated throughout Europe and beyond. With the help of Richard Wagner who declared “Judaism the evil conscience of our modern civilization” in his 1850 treatise Judaism in Music, Mendelssohn and his music were quickly subjected to deliberate and systematic forms of historical revisions. And when Wagner declared Mendelssohn’s music “an icon of degenerate decadence,” publishers far and wide declined to make his manuscripts and letters public.

Of course, Wagner was not able to completely erase or dismiss Mendelssohn’s influence on Germanic arts, nor was he able to excise him from music-historical memory. This, of course, led to serious irritation within the propaganda machinery of Nazi Germany, and his name was promptly added to various lists of forbidden artists. At that time, according to Stephen Somary, founder and artistic director of the Mendelssohn Project, “a majority of Mendelssohn manuscripts — both published and unpublished — were housed in the basement of the Berlin State Library. They were smuggled to Warsaw and Krakow during the winter of 1936/37, and when the city fell under Nazi control in 1939, they were hurriedly smuggled out again and disbursed to locations wide and far between.” Following WWII, the majority of manuscripts remained buried behind the Iron Curtain. Haltingly, various unknown versions and unknown compositions were discovered and made available in one form or another.

The Gewandhaus

Initially, these efforts focused on works Mendelssohn composed before his 14th birthday, pieces that had originally been presented at private concerts at the Mendelssohn home. Among them various sonatas for viola and for violin, religious choral music, numerous piano compositions and even a fourth opera. But it also included a succession of concertos, among them a concerto for piano and string orchestra in A minor (1822) and two concertos for two pianos and full orchestra in E and A-flat, originating from 1823 and 1824, respectively.

The concerto for violin, piano and string orchestra in D minor was composed for an initial private performance with his best friend and violin teacher Eduard Rietz. On 3 July 1822, Mendelssohn revised the scoring, adding timpani and winds and the premiere of this version was apparently performed on the same day. For reasons detailed above, it remained unpublished until 1960, when the Astoria Verlag in Berlin issued a miniature score, edited and arranged by Clemens Schmalstich. In 1966, Theodora Schuster-Lott and Frieder Zschoch prepared a scholarly edition for the Deutsche Verlag für Music as part of the new Mendelssohn complete edition, “which was engraved, but never published except in a reduction by Walter-Heinz Bernstein for violin and two pianos.” Finally, in 1999 the 1960 miniature score was reissued in a scholarly edition with the wind and timpani parts added. And just in case you are wondering, the A-minor Piano Concerto of 1822 had until recently been unavailable in any edition, and the Concerto for two pianos and orchestra in E major, composed as a birthday gift for his sister Fanny, had to wait until 2003 before audiences could get a listen to the original version.

Best Songs in D Minor

by Hermione Lai , Interlude

Bach’s Toccata in D minor 18th century copy by Johannes Ringk

Sometimes, I really don’t understand the descriptions assigned to particular keys. When it comes to D minor, we can read that it represents “dejected womanhood which broods on notions and illusions.” I guess it’s a pretty fancy and period description of a scorned woman in love? Others have said that D minor “expresses a subdued feeling of melancholy, grief, anxiety, and solemnity.” Whatever the case may be, some of the most famous and popular classical pieces ever are written in D minor. And here is my list of personal bests.

Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor

I can tell you that it was not a very easy choice because of all the gorgeous compositions in D minor that I have to leave out. However, for me it’s all starting with the Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. Today that song is used in a variety of popular media, ranging from film, video games and ringtones. But the association today is not melancholy or a scorned woman in love, but sheer terror. This association with horror and Halloween first appeared in a 1962 film adaptation of “The Phantom of the Opera.” It just goes to show that specific associations are easily formed in connection with visual media, but the D minor Toccata and Fugue is still a most powerful composition, and certainly one of the best songs in D minor. 

Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor

Portrait of Felix Mendelssohn by Wilhelm Hensel, 1847

Felix Mendelssohn learned a lot from the music of Bach. In fact, he was responsible that the music of Bach found its rightful place on the world’s concert stages. Mendelssohn looked at the styles and compositional techniques of the past and developed a highly personalized music style. Not everybody was enthusiastic for Mendelssohn to go back in time, and Berlioz once said, “Mendelssohn paid too much attention to the music of the dead.” And the always-punchy critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw compared Mendelssohn to a senile academy professor whose exercises in a dead musical language “are as trivial as they are tedious.” Then as now, it’s difficult to please the critics. Mendelssohn complete his piano trio in D minor in 1839, and Robert Schumann wrote in his review that “Mendelssohn is the Mozart of the 19th century, the most illuminating of musicians.” There is a good bit of melancholy yearning in the opening movement, and the slow “Andante” is actually a song without words that turns to passion. The scherzo is light and airy, and it all ends with a passionate rondo. For me personally, this is one of the most powerful and best songs in D minor ever. 

Mozart: Requiem

Mozart’s Requiem

Since the key of D minor is supposed to express grief and solemnity, it’s not surprising to find a good number of Requiems in that category. Composers who have written Requiems include Bruckner, Reger, Fauré, and probably most famously, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The passionate lover of music, Count Franz von Walsegg commissioned the work for his twenty-year old wife Anna, who had sadly passed away.

The Count was a fellow Freemason, but as we all know, Mozart himself died before he could complete the composition. Sorry to disappoint all fans of the movie Amadeus, but Salieri had nothing to do with the Requiem or with Mozart’s death. Mozart’s wife Constanze hired several composers to finish the piece and deliver it to the Count. Constanze did suggest that her husband actually believed that he was writing the requiem for his own funeral. Whatever the case may be, it is one of the most powerful classical compositions I know, and it certainly is one of the best songs in D minor.

Haydn: Symphony No. 80 in D minor

Portrait of Joseph Haydn by Thomas Hardy, 1791

D minor seemed to have been a highly popular key for composing large-scale symphonies. We have symphonies No. 1 by Dohnányi, Ives, Rachmaninoff and Richard Strauss. Prokofiev and Balakirev wrote their 2nd symphonies in D minor, the same key used by Bruckner in his symphonies No. 3 and No. 9. Dvořák composed his symphonies No. 4 and No. 7 in D minor, and there are also symphonies by Schumann, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Glazunov, and of course the monumental symphony No. 9 by Beethoven. Which one is actually my favorite? To tell the truth, I really can’t decide. So I went back to the father of the symphony, Joseph Haydn, and I found a delightful storm and stress symphony in D minor. His 80th symphony probably dates from 1784, and for some reason it does not have a nickname. However, it is a symphonic gem and Haydn showed everybody coming after him what was actually possible in a symphony. And it is for that particular reason that Haydn’s 80th is my representative for symphonies in D minor. 

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Rachmaninoff proofing a manuscript

Some composers are actually rather difficult to read. Sergei Rachmaninoff was clearly one of the last great pianist-composers in a long tradition stretching back to Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and Brahms. He proudly suggested that “a composer’s music should express the country of his birth, his love affairs, his religion, the books which have influenced him, and the pictures he loves… My music is the product of my temperament…” Rachmaninoff was fiercely egotistic in artistic matters, but also frequently depressed without any specific cause. Very few people ever heard him laugh, and only occasionally did he crack a rare smile. He was often grave in expression and mannerism, and seemed to have been stuck in prolonged periods of philosophical longing and melancholy. Almost sounds like Rachmaninoff could be considered the poster child for D minor. And wouldn’t you know it, he did write a great number of works in that particular key, including the fabulous 3rd piano concerto. It is without doubt one of the all-time best songs in D minor. As you can tell, the key of D minor was really popular with composers, and I have tried to find my favorite songs; what is yours? Next time, I will take a look at the best songs in the cheerful key of B-flat major.

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5, 'Reformation' - Radio Philharmonic Orchestr...

F. Mendelssohn: Symphony nº 3 "Scottish" - R. Gamba - Sinfónica de Galicia

Meet the awesome composer ...

... whose music was published under HER BROTHER’S name

Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. Picture: Getty

By Elizabeth Davis, ClassicFM London

0

Fanny Mendelssohn was a truly great composer, but she faced an almost overwhelming set of obstacles to getting her work published.

Fanny was born in Hamburg on 14 November 1805 and learned to play the piano when she was a child.

She was such an impressive young musician that the composer Carl Friedrich Zelter said of her: “This child really is something special”.

But Fanny wasn’t just a brilliant performer, she was also a composer – like her younger brother Felix.

You may have noticed that the history of classical music is dominated by male composers – and Fanny’s father was a firm believer that composition wasn’t a career for women. He said to his daughter: “Music will perhaps become [Felix’s] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament.”

Discover more about some of the great female composers >

But Fanny was brimming with musical ideas and carried on composing regardless. While her brother was supportive, he also didn’t think Fanny should publish her music. He once said: “From my knowledge of Fanny I should say that she has neither inclination nor vocation for authorship. She is too much all that a woman ought to be for this.”

So instead he published some of her works under his name. One of the songs he published was called ‘Italien’.

A short time later, Felix was invited to perform some of his music for Queen Victoria in Buckingham Palace. She made a special request – could the composer play one of her favourite of his songs? Of course he could. Which one, asked Mendelssohn?

‘Italien’, replied the Queen.

Felix (presumably slightly awkwardly) replied that this beautiful song was actually the work of his sister Fanny.

Overall, Fanny wrote 460 pieces of music including many ‘Songs without Words’, a type of piano piece for which her brother later became famous. Musicologists now believe Fanny pioneered this musical form.

But despite that impressive body of work, Fanny only published her first work in her own name in 1846, when she was 41.

Even today works that were thought to have been written by Felix are being re-attributed to their real composer: the great Fanny Mendelssohn.