Mozart’s birthday is always a signal to me that we are entering a season of great composer birthdays.
Perhaps it is all coincidence, but for whatever reason, music history has arrayed itself in such a way that larger patterns can be discerned. Autumn is heavy with birthdays of significant American composers (Gershwin, Ives, Hanson, Copland, and Virgil Thomson, to name a few). Revered violinists Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz were born on the same day (February 2), as were venerated pianists Sergei Rachmaninoff and Ferruccio Busoni (April 1). Brahms and Tchaikovsky share a birthdate (May 7). So do two of the most prominent film composers, Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin (May 10). After 34 years in radio, these natal serendipities are etched in my memory like tablets carved on Mount Sinai.
Nonetheless, even as I anticipated the birthday of Franz Schubert (January 31), in my eagerness to pay tribute to Mario Lanza on the occasion of his centenary, I inadvertently let it slip by. Please forgive me, Schwammerl. Today, on the anniversary of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), I hope to make amends.
Mendelssohn, of course, was one of the most astonishing of musical prodigies. He composed his earliest masterpieces, the overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and the Octet for Strings in E-flat major, at the ages of 16 and 17 respectively. This is some of the “youngest” music in the entire repertoire. In their precocity and polish, both pieces are on a par with anything written by the teenaged Mozart.
Of course, by then, Mendelssohn had already generated piles of manuscripts – dozens of works, including three piano quartets, a violin sonata, a piano sonata, a singspiel, songs and “Songs without Words,” twelve symphonies for strings, and his first symphony for full orchestra.
And he would go on to write his “Italian” Symphony, his “Scottish” Symphony, the “Hebrides Overture,” the Violin Concerto in E minor, and the oratorio “Elijah,” all of which are still played in heavy rotation, both on radio and in the concert hall.
As a conductor, there’s no question he was one of the most influential musicians in Europe, if not the world. For twelve years, he directed the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, many of whose players went on to distinction in their own right. His performances were especially admired for their precision. He also laid the groundwork for modern concerts in developing a musical “canon.”
He gave important premieres of music by his contemporaries, while also reviving works of Mozart, Beethoven, and of course Johann Sebastian Bach. It was Mendelssohn who famously dusted off the “St. Matthew Passion,” reinvigorating Bach’s reputation.
Another composer who benefited from Mendelssohn’s advocacy was Franz Schubert. In 1838, ten year’s after Schubert’s death, his brother, Ferdinand, shared an unpublished manuscript with Robert Schumann, during one of the latter’s visits to Vienna. Schumann returned to Leipzig with a copy of the piece, a Symphony in C major. Mendelssohn gave the symphony its first public performance in 1839.
Schumann reviewed the concert in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, famously praising the work for its “heavenly length.” For this reason, and to distinguish it from an earlier, shorter Schubert symphony composed in the same key, it is usually identified as the “Great” C major.
Standing only five-foot-one, Schubert himself bore the nickname “Schwammerl” (“Little Mushroom”), bestowed upon him by his friends. Even a minute fungus, it would seem, is more than capable of creating something “Great.”
Happy birthday, Felix Mendelssohn, and happy belated birthday, Franz Schubert.
Mendelssohn, “Hebrides Overture”
His first masterpiece, the Octet in E-flat major, composed at the age of 16:
Live performance of Leonard Bernstein conducting Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 “Great”
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