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FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844)

In 1838 Felix Mendelssohn began to be haunted by a yearning melody, at once sinuous and melancholy, that he recognized as the beginning of a violin concerto. As he wrote to a friend in July of that year, this melody “gave him no peace.” Usually a ruminant, even hesitant, composer, Mendelssohn brooded over this elegiac theme in E minor for years. In the meantime, he completed his String Quartet in E minor, Op. 44, No. 2; its overall mood of subdued passion clearly anticipated that of the violin concerto to come. An 1842 commission from England caused him to draft an extended sketch of a piano concerto in the same key with transitions between movements, just as in the violin concerto.

Mendelssohn wrote the Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, especially for the brilliant violinist Ferdinand David. In February 1836 David became concertmaster of Leipzig’s famed Gewandhaus Orchestra, of which Mendelssohn was music director. The two men were fast friends and they worked closely together as colleagues at the Leipzig Conservatory as well as on the Concerto. Spurred on by David, Mendelssohn turned his full attention to writing the piece in the early months of 1844. Work proceeded so rapidly that the orchestral score was virtually complete by September. Although he is often now thought of as a facile composer whose work came to him effortlessly, Mendelssohn was in fact a compulsive reviser. At one point in his correspondence with David, he wondered if he should not extend the poetic cadenza of the first movement into a full virtuoso display, which he happily decided not to do. By the end of the year, Mendelssohn was still fussing over details; the exasperated violinist had to coax the fastidious composer into relinquishing his score. David premiered the Concerto in Leipzig on March 13, 1845, with the Danish composer Niels Gade conducting. It was an immediate and lasting success, beloved by violinists and listeners alike.

Mendelssohn cast his Violin Concerto in three movements connected by transitions so that each flows effortlessly into the next without interruption. (The composer may have wished to forestall the then-customary applause after every movement.) He might have derived this practice from the Konzertstück in F minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 79 (1815-21), by Carl Maria von Weber, in which the major sections succeed each other without a break. Mendelssohn was one of the finest pianists of his era and played Weber’s brilliant work often. Unlike Weber’s score, however, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto has no extramusical “program” to explicate its impassioned emotion.

After a single rustling measure scored for strings and timpani, the violin enters with the principal theme of the first movement (Allegro molto appassionato). This haunting beginning owes a debt to Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, a work that was also in Mendelssohn’s repertory, in which the pianist plays the opening theme immediately before the orchestra enters. Mendelssohn deploys this reversal of the traditional roles of soloist and orchestra throughout his Violin Concerto. Like Beethoven, he derived all of the material in his score from these opening measures. In particular, the first notes played by the soloist have a distinctive rhythm, a “long-short” pattern known to musicians as a “dotted rhythm.” This dotted rhythm recurs constantly throughout the piece, binding its materials together in remarkable unity despite a kaleidoscopic variety of moods. After this arresting opening, the first movement proceeds along the lines of a standard sonata form until the cadenza’s unexpected appearance at the end of the development. This daring formal innovation enabled Mendelssohn to weave the cadenza into the tapestry of the score rather than simply allowing it to be a pretext for virtuoso display near the very end of the movement, as was customary during the period. The Concerto’s cadenza therefore functions more like a soliloquy in a drama than a succession of fireworks, the end of which melds seamlessly into the recapitulation, evincing remarkable ingenuity in the service of emotional expression.

After a concise transition that prominently features the bassoon, the wistful second movement (Andante) gently unfolds a lyrical melody, a veritable “song without words.” During the more agitated middle section, the oscillating figuration of the solo violin recalls the tremulous orchestral figure with which the Concerto began. The next transition alludes to elements of the first movement’s opening theme, thus moving elegantly into the finale. The last movement (Allegretto non troppo—Allegro molto vivace) is a combination of elfin scherzo and exultant finale. Near the end of this scintillating rondo, an exultant lyrical outburst precedes the joyous final measures.

—Byron Adams

FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844)

In 1838 Felix Mendelssohn began to be haunted by a yearning melody, at once sinuous and melancholy, that he recognized as the beginning of a violin concerto. As he wrote to a friend in July of that year, this melody “gave him no peace.” Usually a ruminant, even hesitant, composer, Mendelssohn brooded over this elegiac theme in E minor for years. In the meantime, he completed his String Quartet in E minor, Op. 44, No. 2; its overall mood of subdued passion clearly anticipated that of the violin concerto to come. An 1842 commission from England caused him to draft an extended sketch of a piano concerto in the same key with transitions between movements, just as in the violin concerto.

Mendelssohn wrote the Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, especially for the brilliant violinist Ferdinand David. In February 1836 David became concertmaster of Leipzig’s famed Gewandhaus Orchestra, of which Mendelssohn was music director. The two men were fast friends and they worked closely together as colleagues at the Leipzig Conservatory as well as on the Concerto. Spurred on by David, Mendelssohn turned his full attention to writing the piece in the early months of 1844. Work proceeded so rapidly that the orchestral score was virtually complete by September. Although he is often now thought of as a facile composer whose work came to him effortlessly, Mendelssohn was in fact a compulsive reviser. At one point in his correspondence with David, he wondered if he should not extend the poetic cadenza of the first movement into a full virtuoso display, which he happily decided not to do. By the end of the year, Mendelssohn was still fussing over details; the exasperated violinist had to coax the fastidious composer into relinquishing his score. David premiered the Concerto in Leipzig on March 13, 1845, with the Danish composer Niels Gade conducting. It was an immediate and lasting success, beloved by violinists and listeners alike.

Mendelssohn cast his Violin Concerto in three movements connected by transitions so that each flows effortlessly into the next without interruption. (The composer may have wished to forestall the then-customary applause after every movement.) He might have derived this practice from the Konzertstück in F minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 79 (1815-21), by Carl Maria von Weber, in which the major sections succeed each other without a break. Mendelssohn was one of the finest pianists of his era and played Weber’s brilliant work often. Unlike Weber’s score, however, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto has no extramusical “program” to explicate its impassioned emotion.

After a single rustling measure scored for strings and timpani, the violin enters with the principal theme of the first movement (Allegro molto appassionato). This haunting beginning owes a debt to Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, a work that was also in Mendelssohn’s repertory, in which the pianist plays the opening theme immediately before the orchestra enters. Mendelssohn deploys this reversal of the traditional roles of soloist and orchestra throughout his Violin Concerto. Like Beethoven, he derived all of the material in his score from these opening measures. In particular, the first notes played by the soloist have a distinctive rhythm, a “long-short” pattern known to musicians as a “dotted rhythm.” This dotted rhythm recurs constantly throughout the piece, binding its materials together in remarkable unity despite a kaleidoscopic variety of moods. After this arresting opening, the first movement proceeds along the lines of a standard sonata form until the cadenza’s unexpected appearance at the end of the development. This daring formal innovation enabled Mendelssohn to weave the cadenza into the tapestry of the score rather than simply allowing it to be a pretext for virtuoso display near the very end of the movement, as was customary during the period. The Concerto’s cadenza therefore functions more like a soliloquy in a drama than a succession of fireworks, the end of which melds seamlessly into the recapitulation, evincing remarkable ingenuity in the service of emotional expression.

After a concise transition that prominently features the bassoon, the wistful second movement (Andante) gently unfolds a lyrical melody, a veritable “song without words.” During the more agitated middle section, the oscillating figuration of the solo violin recalls the tremulous orchestral figure with which the Concerto began. The next transition alludes to elements of the first movement’s opening theme, thus moving elegantly into the finale. The last movement (Allegretto non troppo—Allegro molto vivace) is a combination of elfin scherzo and exultant finale. Near the end of this scintillating rondo, an exultant lyrical outburst precedes the joyous final measures.

—Byron Adams