3rd Symphony (Mendelssohn)

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The Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 ( MWV N 18 ) by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy is a romantic symphony in four movements . The performance lasts approx. 40 minutes. It is usually called the "Scottish Symphony", although Mendelssohn himself never authorized this name.

Historical background

In the spring of 1829, Mendelssohn, then 20, traveled to the British Isles for the first time. After a number of successful concert appearances in London, he set off for Scotland in July with his friend Karl Klingemann to visit places of memory of Mary Queen of Scots , the northern Highlands and the Hebrides . The gloomy nature of the country immediately attracted Mendelssohn. He processed his impressions musically in the overture The Hebrides and in the 3rd Symphony. In Edinburgh , where he u. a. Visited the Holyrood Palace , he wrote down the Andante in a piano version and set out his first ideas for the orchestration. The ruins of the chapel at Holyrood Palace seem to have inspired him directly. In a letter he writes:

“Today in deep twilight we went to the palace where Queen Maria lived and loved. [...] The chapel next to it is now missing the roof. Grass and ivy grow much in it, and on the broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything is broken, rotten and the clear sky shines into it. I think I found the beginning of my Scottish Symphony there today. "

Nevertheless, this work occupied him the longest of all his symphonies: he did not complete the work until January 20, 1842, thirteen years later. It is the last of Mendelssohn's four symphonies, but was given a lower numbering because the earlier "Italian" and the "Reformation Symphony " were published later.

The premiere took place on March 3, 1842 in the Leipzig Gewandhaus under the direction of the composer.

construction

  1. Andante con moto - Allegro un poco agitato
  2. Vivace non troppo
  3. adagio
  4. Allegro vivacissimo - Allegro maestoso assai

occupation

2 flutes , 2 oboes , 2 clarinets , 2 bassoons , 4 horns , 2 trumpets , timpani , 1st violin , 2nd violin, viola , cello , double bass

Work description

Mendelssohn uses a classically cast orchestra for his composition , but tries to partially overcome the traditional four-movement structure of the classical symphony by having the four movements play attacca (i.e. without a break) and thus combine the symphonic cycle into one unit.

The first movement is in sonata form and begins with a slow introduction, which Mendelssohn had sketched out in Scotland in 1829. The fast-paced first movement is in a dark, melancholy minor .

It is followed as the second movement by a scherzo , which, with its pentatonic and an and the rhythmic formula known as Scotch snap, is based on folkloric models, but without directly quoting original Scottish melodies.

The cantable slow movement that follows is again in sonata form .

The final movement begins with a distinctive main violin theme with sharp colon dots, which runs through the entire movement and turns the work's finale into an exuberant, festive apotheosis .

reception

The musicologist Siegfried Oechsle sees the 3rd symphony as the representative example of a symphony composition by Mendelssohn. It is not only the composer's last symphony, but also his main work in this genre. As arguments for his thesis, Oechsle cites the form structure of the composition and the complexity of the work, the enormous expansion of the introduction and the fact that op. 56 is the only symphonic work that Mendelssohn himself promoted to print.

Audio samples

Recording of the Fulda Symphony Orchestra (2003)

1st movement: Andante con moto - Allegro un poco agitato
2nd movement: Scherzo: Vivace non troppo
3rd movement: Adagio
 
4th movement: Allegro vivacissimo - Allegro maestoso assai

literature

  • Matthias Falke: Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Third Symphony . Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 978-3-8391-3715-4 .
  • Rudolf Kloiber : Handbook of the classical and romantic symphony. 2nd expanded edition. Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 1976, ISBN 3-7651-0017-X .
  • Wulf Konold : Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 Scottish. In: ders. (Ed.): Lexicon Orchestermusik Romantik I – R. Schott / Piper, Mainz / Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7957-8227-9 , pp. 471-475.
  • Wulf Konold: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's symphonies. Investigations into the shape and structure of the work. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1992, ISBN 3-89007-232-1 , pp. 213-354.

Web links

Commons : Mendelssohn, 3rd Symphony  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thomas Schmidt-Beste: Just how "Scottish" is the "Scottish" Symphony? - Thoughts on Form and Poetic Content in Mendelssohn's Opus 56 . In: Benedict Taylor (Ed.): Mendelssohn . Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, Farnham 2015, ISBN 978-1-4724-3539-2 , p. 481.
  2. ^ A b R. Larry Todd: Mendelssohn - A Life in Music . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003, ISBN 0-19-517988-9 , p. 430.
  3. ↑ Quoted from Carl Dalhaus: The Mendelssohn Problem (= Studies on the History of Music in the 19th Century . Volume 41). Bosse, Regensburg 1974, ISBN 3-7649-2093-9 , p. 123.
  4. ↑ Michael Talbot: The Finale in Western Instrumental Music , Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 131
  5. ^ Siegfried Oechsle: Symphonik nach Beethoven - Studies on Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Gade (= Kieler Schriften zur Musikwissenschaft ; Vol. 40). Bärenreiter, Kassel 1992, ISBN 3-7618-1058-X , p. 249 f. (Zugl .: Kiel, Univ., Diss., 1989).