I. Allegro vivace
II. Andante con moto
III. Con moto moderato
IV. Saltarello: presto
How much of Italy is there in this symphony of Mendelssohn? Suppose
there were no title. The last movement might easily be recognized as a
_saltarello_; but how about the other movements? The first is light and
gay, but there is no geographical or national mood at once established,
there is no authoritative characterization. I doubt whether even a
tambourine would be of material assistance. It was not necessary for the
composer to go to Naples to write the _andante_. As for the _scherzo_,
the horns with their pleasant sentimentalism might represent today
Germans in Rome, armed with red guide books, and now and then bursting
out in songs of the Fatherland, something about the forest, or spring,
or the blissfulness of sorrow and longing. The _saltarello_ part was
done much better by Berlioz. Compare this symphony, so far as local
color is concerned, with a page of Bizet painting in tones a Southern
scene, or with Richard Strauss’ Italian suite, or with the suite of
Charpentier, and Mendelssohn’s music seems without marked distinction,
rather tame and drab. Yet the first movement and the _finale_ are
amiable music, pages that may awaken a gentlemanlike joy, and there is
no denying the clearness of the musical thought, the purity of
expression, the sure and polished workmanship.
* * *
The symphony was completed in Berlin. Mendelssohn wrote to Pastor Bauer,
“My work about which I recently had many misgivings is completed, and,
looking it over, I now find that, contrary to my expectations, it
satisfies me. I believe it has become a good piece. Be that as it may, I
feel it shows progress, and that is the main point.” The score bears the
date, Berlin, March 13, 1833.
The first performance from manuscript and under the direction of the
composer was at the sixth concert of the Philharmonic Society that
season, May 13, 1833. “The concerts of the Society were this year, and
onward, given in the Hanover Square Rooms, which had just been
remodeled. The symphony made a great impression, and Felix electrified
the audience by his wonderful performance of Mozart’s Concerto in D
minor, his _cadenzas_ being marvels in design and execution. His new
overture in C was produced at the last concert of the season.”
Mendelssohn began to revise the symphony in June, 1834. On February 16,
1835, he wrote to Klingemann that he was biting his nails over the first
movement and could not yet master it, but that in any event it should be
something different—perhaps wholly new—and he had this doubt about every
one of the movements. Towards the end of 1837 the revision was
completed. Whether the symphony in its new form was played at a
Philharmonic Society Concert in London, June 18, 1838, conducted by
Moscheles, is doubtful, although Moscheles asked him for it. The first
performance of the revised version on the European continent was at a
Gewandhaus concert, Leipsic, November 1, 1849, when Julius Rietz
conducted. The score and orchestral parts were not published until
March, 1851.
Grove remarked of this work: “The music itself is better than any
commentary. Let that be marked, learned, and inwardly digested.”
Reismann found the first movement, _allegro vivace_, A major, 6-8, to be
a paraphrase of the so-called “Hunting Song” in the first group of
_Songs without Words_. The tonality is the same, and this is often
enough to fire the imagination of a commentator. The chief subject
begins with the violins in the second measure and is developed at
length. The second subject, E major, is for clarinets. The development
section begins with a new figure treated in imitation by the strings.
The chief theme is then used, with the second introduced contrapuntally.
In the recapitulation section the second theme is given to the strings.
The second movement, _andante con moto_, D minor, 4-4, sometimes called
the “Pilgrims’ March,” but without any authority, is said “to have been
a processional hymn, which probably gave the name of ‘“_Italian_”
symphony’ to the whole (!).” Lampadius remarks in connection with this:
“I cannot discover that the piece bears any mark of a decided Catholic
character, for, if I recollect rightly, I once heard Moscheles say that
Mendelssohn had in his mind as the source of this second movement an old
Bohemian folk song.”[38] The two introductory measures suggested to
Grove “the cry of a muezzin from his minaret,” but, pray, what has this
to do with Italy? The chief theme is given out by oboe, clarinet, and
violas. The violins take it up with counterpoint for the flutes. There
is a new musical idea for the clarinets. The first theme returns. The
two introductory measures are used with this material in the remainder
of the movement.
The third movement is marked simply “_con moto moderato_” (A major,
3-4). “There is a tradition (said to originate with Mendelssohn’s
brother-in-law, Hensel, but still of uncertain authority) that it was
transferred to its present place from some earlier composition. It is
not, however, to be found in either of the twelve unpublished juvenile
symphonies; and in the first rough draft of this symphony there is no
sign of its having been interpolated. In style the movement is, no
doubt, earlier than the rest of the work.” The movement opens with a
theme for first violins; the trio with a passage for bassoons and horns.
The third part is a repetition of the first. In the _coda_ there is at
the end a suggestion of the trio.
The _finale_ is a _saltarello, presto_, 4-4. There are three themes. The
flutes, after six introductory measures, play the first. In the second,
somewhat similar in character, the first and second violins answer each
other. The third is also given to the first and second violins
alternately, but now in the form of a continuously moving, not a jumping
figure.
This _saltarello_ was undoubtedly inspired by the Carnival at Rome, of
which Mendelssohn gave a description in his letter of February 8, 1831.
“On Saturday all the world went to the Capitol, to witness the form of
the Jews’ supplications to be suffered to remain in the Sacred City for
another year, a request which is refused at the foot of the hill, but,
after repeated entreaties, granted on the summit, and the Ghetto is
assigned to them. It was a tiresome affair; we waited two hours, and
after all, understood the oration of the Jews as little as the answer of
the Christians. I came down again in very bad humor, and thought that
the Carnival had begun rather unpropitiously. So I arrived in the Corso
and was driving along, thinking no evil, when I was suddenly assailed by
a shower of sugar comfits. I looked up; they had been flung by some
young ladies whom I had seen occasionally at balls, but scarcely knew,
and when in my embarrassment I took off my hat to bow to them, the
pelting began in right earnest. Their carriage drove on, and in the next
was Miss T——, a delicate young Englishwoman. I tried to bow to her, but
she pelted me, too; so I became quite desperate, and clutching the
confetti, I flung them back bravely. There were swarms of my
acquaintances and my blue coat was soon as white as that of a miller.
The B——s were standing on a balcony, flinging confetti like hail at my
head; and thus pelting and pelted, amid a thousand jests and jeers and
the most extravagant masks, the day ended with races.”
It is a singular reflection on “local color” in music that Schumann
mistook the “_Scotch_” symphony for the “_Italian_” and wrote of the
former: “It can, like the Italian scenes in _Titan_, cause you for a
moment to forget the sorrow of not having seen that heavenly country.”
The best explanation of this Symphony No. 4, if there be need of any
explanation, is found in the letters of Mendelssohn from Italy.
OVERTURE AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC TO SHAKESPEARE’S LAY, “A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S
DREAM”
Translations by Schlegel and Tieck of Shakespeare’s plays were read by
Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny in 1826. The overture, _A Midsummer
Night’s Dream_, was written in July and August of that year.
Klingemann tells us that part of the score was written “in the summer,
in the open air, in the Mendelssohns’ garden at Berlin, for I was
present.” This garden belonged to a house in the Leipziger Strasse (No.
3). It was near the Potsdam gate, and when Abraham Mendelssohn, the
father, bought it, his friends complained that he was moving out of the
world. There was an estate of about ten acres. In the house was a room
for theatrical performances; and the center of the garden house formed a
hall which held several hundred, and it was here that Sunday music was
performed. In the time of Frederick the Great this garden was part of
the Thiergarten. In the summer-houses were writing materials, and Felix
edited a newspaper, called in summer _The Garden Times_, and in the
winter _The Snow and Tea Times_.
Mendelssohn told Hiller that he had worked long and eagerly on the
overture: “How in his spare time between the lectures at the Berlin
University he had gone on extemporizing at it on the piano of a
beautiful woman who lived close by; ‘for a whole year, I hardly did
anything else,’ he said; and certainly he had not wasted his time.”
It is said that Mendelssohn made two drafts of the overture, and
discarded the earlier after he completed the first half. This earlier
draft began with the four chords and the fairy figure; then followed a
regular overture, in which use was made of a theme typical of the loves
of Lysander and Hermia, and of kin to the “love melody” of the present
version.
The overture was first written as a pianoforte duet, and it was first
played to Moscheles in that form by the composer and his sister,
November 19, 1826. It was performed afterwards by an orchestra in the
garden house. The first public performance was at Stettin in February,
1827, from manuscript, when Karl Löwe conducted. The critic was not
hurried in those days, for an account of the concert appeared in the
_Harmonicon_ for December of that year. The critic had had time to think
the matter over, and his conclusion was that the overture was of little
importance.
The overture was performed in England for the first time on June 24
(Midsummer Day), 1829, at a concert given by Louis Drouet in the Argyll
Rooms. Sir George Smart, who returned from the concert with Mendelssohn,
left the score of the overture in a hackney coach. So the story is told;
but is it not possible that the blameless Mendelssohn left it? The score
was never found, and Mendelssohn rewrote it. The overture was played in
England for the first time in connection with Shakespeare’s comedy at
London, in 1840, when Mme Vestris appeared in the performance at Covent
Garden.
The orchestral parts were published in 1832; the score in April, 1835.
The overture is dedicated to His Royal Majesty the Crown Prince of
Prussia.
The overture opens _allegro di molto_, E major, 2-2, with four prolonged
chords in the wood-wind. On the last of these follows immediately a
_pianissimo_ chord of E minor in violins and violas. This is followed by
the “fairy music” in E minor, given out and developed by divided violins
with some _pizzicati_ in the violas. A subsidiary theme is given out
_fortissimo_ by full orchestra. The melodious second theme, in B major,
begun by the wood-wind, is then continued by the strings and fuller and
fuller orchestra. Several picturesque features are then introduced: the
Bergomask dance from the fifth act of the play; a curious imitation of
the bray of an ass in allusion to Bottom, who is, according to Maginn’s
paradox, “the blockhead, _the_ lucky man on whom Fortune showers her
favors beyond measure”; and the quickly descending scale passage for
violoncellos, which was suggested to the composer by the buzzing of a
big fly in the Schoenhauser Garten. The free fantasia is wholly on the
first theme. The third part of the overture is regular, and there is a
short _coda_. The overture ends with the four sustained chords with
which it opened.
In 1843 King Frederick William the Fourth of Prussia wished Mendelssohn
to compose music for the plays _Antigone_, _A Midsummer_ _Night’s
Dream_, _Athalie_, which should be produced in September. During March
and April of that year Mendelssohn, who had written the overture in
1826, composed the additional music for Shakespeare’s play. Tieck had
divided the play into three acts and had said nothing to the composer
about the change. Mendelssohn had composed with reference to the
original division. The first performance was in the Royal Theater in the
New Palace, Potsdam, October 14, 1843, on the eve of the festival of the
King’s birthday. Mendelssohn conducted.
The score was published in June, 1848; the orchestral parts in August of
that year. The first edition for pianoforte was published in September,
1844.
Mendelssohn’s music to the play consists of thirteen numbers:
I. Overture;
II. _Scherzo_ (Entr’acte after Act I);
III. Fairy March (in Act II);
IV. “You spotted snakes,” for two sopranos and chorus (in Act II);
V. Melodrama (in Act II);
VI. Intermezzo (Entr’acte after Act II);
VII. Melodrama (in Act III);
VIII. Notturno (Entr’acte after Act III);
IX. _Andante_ (in Act IV);
X. Wedding March (after the close of Act IV);
XI. _Allegro commodo_ and _Marcia funebre_ (in Act V);
XII. Bergomask Dance (in Act V);
XIII. _Finale_ to Act V.
Many of the themes in these numbers were taken from the overture.
The _scherzo_ (entr’acte between Acts I and II) is an _allegro vivace_
in G minor, 3-8. “Presumably Mendelssohn intended it as a purely musical
reflection of the scene in Quince’s house—the first meeting to discuss
the play to be given by the workmen at the wedding—with which the first
act ends. Indeed, there is a passing allusion to Nick Bottom’s bray in
it. But the general character of the music is bright and fairy-like,
with nothing of the grotesque about it.” The _scherzo_ presents an
elaborate development of two themes that are not sharply contrasted; the
first theme has a subsidiary. The score is dedicated to Heinrich Conrad
Schleinitz.