OCTET FOR STRINGS, Opus 20
by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

________________________________

BETWEEN THE AGES of 12 and 14, Mendelssohn composed a series of twelve symphonies for strings (No. 11 includes some moments for percussion).  These display a vigorous youthful genius and an extraordinary fluency, based on a close knowledge of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven (who was still alive).

       Music poured out of Mendelssohn at that tender age, with little trace of technical difficulty or doubt. There was no need for public performance or publication in print, because the family hosted regular soirées in their large Berlin home, where family and friends took part — and during which young Felix could hear his own budding compositions come to life. Chamber music was ideal in this milieu, and he also wrote four piano quartets, a violin sonata, a viola sonata, and a sextet for strings. He was a brilliant pianist, and more than competent on violin and viola.  His sister Fanny was an excellent pianist, too.

       This stream of chamber music culminated in the great Octet, composed in October 1825, when Felix was 16. From one point of view, it can be seen as a continuation of the string symphonies, — an orchestral, symphonic texture can be heard an a number of moments, with tremolos and syncopated chords reaching out for a big sound. Looking at it from another direction, the Octet can be viewed as a string quartet in which each player has a partner, thus providing a rich variety of intricate textures possibly more ambitious even than anything Mozart or Beethoven ever attempted.

       This piece is, above all, and inexplicably for a composer so young, a fully mature work without the extended length of the early symphonies, where fluency and facility went unchecked. The Octet's structure is superbly balanced and controlled, and the musical interest is generously shared between all eight players. The first violin part calls for virtuosity, it is true, but the Mendelssohns had the benefit of the violinist Eduard Rietz, himself only 23 years old, as a resident virtuoso for whom the part was certainly written and to whom the work was dedicated.

       The writing in places anticipates the chamber music of Johannes Brahms, as in the first movement's second subject, introduced by fourth violin and first viola in parallel sixths. An especially telling moment has the first violin soaring high in register as the music prepares to repeat back to the beginning. This is followed by a Beethovenian development that seems almost to fall toward drowsy sleep (non unlike a similar moment in Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream overture) before rousing itself in a huge stream of unison notes in time for the recapitulation.

       The slow movement (not performed in this broadcast) is somber, featuring the lower instruments in pairs and some exquisite textures moving mysteriously, sometimes in eight parts. The third-movement scherzo (also not in this broadcast) is the first example of that light, delicate fairy style that Mendelssohn so brilliantly adopted in the Midsummer Night's Dream, written only a year later.

       Then, in a flash, the second cello has launched the headlong fugue which sets the finale fourth movement in motion. Surely with tongue in cheek, Mendelssohn slips effortlessly, before the close, into the first theme of the scherzo, which raises a smile but also proclaims one of Mendelssohn's most persistent ideas: that the movements of symphonies and chamber music should be interconnected with themes that recur and with links between movements. At this early age, however, he is simply an exuberantly young and gifted composer leaving eight string players with the conviction that they have never in their lives had so much pleasure from playing chamber music as this.

—program note by Hugh Macdonald © 2020

Performed by members of The Cleveland Orchestra:

Jung-Min Amy Lee, violin
Alicia Koelz, violin

Takako Masame, violin
Miho Hashizume, violin

Lynne Ramsey, viola
Joanna Patterson Zakany, viola

Tanya Ell,cello
Ralph Curry,cello

Click or tap on names above to read each musician's bio.