Mendelssohn

[Harvey]

What do you think of Mendelssohn's music?

I basically ignored this great composer for years but just recently started listening to his symphonies and now have ordered complete symphonies and complete string symphonies. I feel as though Mendelssohn has taken me in a way no other composer except Beethoven has.

[Michael]

I always loved the Fourth Symphony and the Hebrides Overture.

[Chris]

I like many of his symphonies, and I absolutely love the violin concerto. I would like to spend more time exploring his work.

[Enrique]

I once heard: "Mendelssohn began as a genius and ended as a talent". Nobody listening to the Italian symphony can deny he was of a formidable stature as a composer, plus he (and Schumann) unburied the treasure of Bach's vocal music that was unknown in the time of Beethoven, who only knew a very limited fragment of this instrumental output.

[hal9000]

Hard to believe he wrote this very Beethovenian string quartet when he was just 18.

[Enrique]

Hard to believe he wrote A summer Night's Dream's music. The instrumentation is magical. Watch the flutes in the very first bars!

[Decrepit Poster]

In addition to the fine pieces listed above I'm partial to the Octet, the final movement of which is heard here, and the first piano concert heard here in excerpt.

[hal9000]

And he wrote that when he was 16! It reminds me of the finale of Beethoven's Op.59 #3

[gprengel]

I once heard: "Mendelssohn began as a genius and ended as a talent".

whosoever wrote that had no idea of the wonderful music, also late music, of Mendelssohn. I love him to the uttermost!

- The stringquartett in f-minor written in his last year is one of the greatest quartetts I know

- Elias oratorio, his psalms, "Lauda Zion" and other spiritual music is moving beyond words can describe

- and he wrote one of the greatest piano concertos ever written:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UOHL5R3Vo0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nyMFX81JgI

[Decrepit Poster]

Hard to believe he wrote A summer Night's Dream's music. The instrumentation is magical. Watch the flutes in the very first bars!

Speaking the Midsummer Night's Dream, its finale is one of the most lovely pieces of music I know, yet remains seldom heard in concert or on recordings.

[Decrepit Poster]

No one has mentioned the wonderful Violin Concerto? Here's a recording of it I came upon only this morning and am already quite taken with. Besides being a fine interpretation it seems to be, as heard through my computer audio subsystem, one of those rare concerto recordings in which soloist and orchestra maintain proper balance, with the orchestra dominant when appropriate. All too often (at least in those recordings housed in my disk collection) the soloist receives undue presence with the accompaniment relegated to the background, even when it carries the important musical line(s). Not so here.

[Chris]

No one has mentioned the wonderful Violin Concerto?

I did! It's a wonderful piece - one of my favorites. My favorite recording of it is by Nathan Milstein.

[Sorrano]

The violin concerto was my introduction to Mendelssohn. It always has a special place in my heart. The piano music must not be overlooked, either. What gems those Songs without Words are!