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| Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy 1809-1847 |
The waymarker of the violinist's repertory, bestride the poles of the Romantic epoch, Mendelssohn's ineffable craftsmanship gave the world one of the most songful violin concertos ever penned.
Mendelssohn violin concerto in E minor is the result of creative work that has been hard for a long time. Mendelssohn (who, as a precocious teenager had written a violin concerto in D minor in 1822) regularly sought advice from Ferdinand David throughout the six-year gestation of his E minor Concerto.
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| Ferdinand David 1810-1873 |
In July 1838, he had promised his compatriot from Hamburg (whom he had recently appointed Konzertmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra) a new concerto: "one in E minor is running through my head... and the beginning does not leave me in peace."
The concerto was finally ready early in 1845; Mendelssohn continued to modify the score almost to the eve of the premiere (13th March), given by David, with Danish composer Niels W. Gade conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra.
From that day forward, Mendelssohn's violin concerto has enjoyed unique status within the canon of virtuoso concertos for the instrument.
Constructed with lightness of touch and Classical economy of means, its seamless architecture cunningly hides several progressive features.
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| virtualsheetmusic.com |
The first of many bold structural innovations - the omission of an opening ritornello in which the orchestra announces the main thematic material - enables the soloist to introduce the first subject of the opening movement after only one-and-a-half prefatory bars. Though following a sonata-form outline, the movement includes a cadenza, written out in full and placed at the close of the development, which forms a natural bridge into the recapitulation. (Like the paganini and beethoven violin concerto, the long prelude of the orchestra before the solo violin, he had deleted!
One of the most astonishing gestures is the sustained B held by the the bassoon, rising a semitone to modulate from the tonic key, E minor, to the C major Andante.
This serene 'Song without Words', in regular ternary form, orbits a restless A-minor episode, in which the agitated double-stopped figurations of the solo part provide dramatic contrast to the limpid outer sections. In a plaintive bridge-passage, the soloist muses fleetingly over the opening motif of the concerto, before mock-martial trumpet fanfares rouse the elfin jubilance of the quicksilver Finale.
With barely two years of life remaining to him, Mendelssohn's melodic genius rekindled the carefree ebullience of his teenage masterworks-the Octet and the overture to A midsummer night's dream- for one last time.
I can't say anything in all violin music except Heifetz; I love his violin tone!
Her interpretation of the Mendelssohn concerto has garnered universal plaudits. Very amiable grace!
Alina Ibragimova, Her sophisticated interpretation!
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