Pristine Classical Recorded Music

Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64

Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 is his last large orchestral work. It forms an important part of the violin repertoire and is one of the most popular and most frequently performed violin concertos of all time. A typical performance lasts just under half an hour.

History

Following his appointment in 1835 to principal conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mendelssohn named his childhood friend Ferdinand David as the orchestra's concertmaster. The work's origins derive from this professional collaboration. In a letter dated 30 July 1838, Mendelssohn wrote to David: "I should like to write a violin concerto for you next winter. One in E minor runs through my head, the beginning of which gives me no peace."

However, the concerto took another six years to complete. There are many possible reasons for the delay, including self-doubt, his third symphony and an unhappy period in Berlin after a request from King Frederick William IV of Prussia. During this time though, Mendelssohn and David kept up a regular correspondence, with Mendelssohn seeking technical and compositional advice. Indeed, this violin concerto was the first of many to have been composed with the input of a professional violinist, and would influence many future colloborations. The autographed score is dated 16 September 1844, but Mendelssohn was still seeking advice from David until its premiere. When it was finally completed, it was first performed in Leipzig on 13 March 1845 with Ferdinand David as soloist. Mendelssohn was unable to conduct due to illness and the premiere was conducted by the Danish composer Niels Gade.

Instrumentation

The work is scored for solo violin and a standard classical orchestra consisting of two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings.

 

Movements

The concerto is in three movements:

1. Allegro molto appassionato
2. Andante
3. Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace

 

1. Allegro molto appassionato

12 – 14 minutes

The concerto opens with an almost immediate entry of the solo violin with the very tune in E minor that gave Mendelssohn no peace. Following a bravura of rapidly descending notes, the opening theme is then restated by the orchestra. There is then a frenetic chromatic transition passage as the music subsides and modulates into a tranquil second subject theme in G major. The melody is initially played by the woodwind with the soloist providing a pedal note on an open G string. The tune is played by the solo violin itself before a short codetta ends the exposition section of the opening movement. The opening two themes are then combined in the development section, where the music builds up to the cadenza, which Mendelssohn wrote himself. The cadenza builds up speed through rhythmic shifts from quavers to quaver-triplets and finally to semiquavers, which require ricochet bowing from the soloist. This serves as a link to the recapitulation, where the opening melody is played by the orchestra, accompanied by the continuing ricochet arpeggios by the soloist. During the recapitulation, the opening themes are repeated with the second theme being played for the first time in a minor key. The music gathers speed into the coda, which is marked 'Presto', before a variant of the original chromatic transition passage ends the first movement.

 

2. Andante

8 – 9 minutes

The bassoon sustains its B from the final chord of the first movement before moving up a semitone to middle C. This serves as a key change from the E minor opening movement into the lyrical C major slow movement. The movement is in ternary form and is reminiscent of Mendelssohn's own Songs without Words. The theme to the darker middle section in A minor is first introduced by the orchestra before the violin then takes up both the melody and the accompaniment simultaneously. The tremulous accompaniment requires nimble dexterity from the soloist before the music returns to the main lyrical C major theme, this time leading towards a serene conclusion.

 

3. Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace

6 minutes

Following the second movement, there is a brief fourteen bar transitional passage in E minor for solo violin and strings only. This leads into the lively finale, the whole of which is in E major and whose opening is marked by a trumpet fanfare. The third movement is in sonata rondo form with an opening theme requiring fast passage work from the soloist. The opening exposition leads into a brief second B major theme which is played by the soloist and builds to a series of rapidly ascending and descending arpeggios, reminiscent of the cadenza from the first movement. The orchestra then plays a variation of the opening melody, before the music moves into a short development section in G major. The recapitulation is essentially similar to the exposition, apart from the addition of a counter-melody in the strings. There is almost a small cadenza near the end of the movement when the woodwind play the main tune against prolonged trills from the solo violin. The concerto then concludes with a frenetic coda.

 

Analysis

The concerto is innovative in many respects. In the first movement alone, Mendelssohn departs from the typical form of a Classical concerto in many ways. The most immediate is the entry of the soloist almost from the outset, which happens also in his First Piano Concerto. Although the first movement is mostly in sonata form, Mendelssohn has the first theme played by the solo violin and then by the orchestra. Classical concertos typically open with an orchestral introduction followed by a version of essentially the same material that incorporates the soloist.

The cadenza is also novel in that it is written out as part of the concerto and located before the recapitulation. In a typical Classical concerto, the cadenza is improvised by the performing soloist and occurs at the end of a movement, after the recapitulation and just before the final coda.

The violin concerto stands out in its linking of the three movements. There is no break between the first and second movements, with a bassoon note held between the two. The bridging passage between the last two movements begins almost immediately after the slow movement. The melody is similar to that of the opening, which hints at the cyclic form of the piece. The linking was designed to eliminate applause between movements. This would have come as a surprise to Mendelssohn's audience, who unlike today were used to applauding between movements.

The concerto also calls on the soloist to be nothing more than just an accompanist to the orchestra for extended periods, an example being the ricochet arpeggios at the start of the recapitulation. This too was novel for a violin concerto of its time.

 

Legacy

Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto influenced the concertos of many other composers, who would use aspects of the concerto in their own. This would lead to the concerto being regarded as one of the most plagiarised of all time.

For example, the unusual placement of the cadenza would inspire the violin concertos by Tchaikovsky where the cadenza is also placed before the recapitulation and Sibelius where the cadenza serves to extend the development section. Following this concerto, it would also be very rare for a composer to leave a cadenza unwritten and left for the soloist to improvise. The linking of the three movements would also influence other concertos, an example being Liszt's Second Piano Concerto.

The concerto itself was an instant success and by the end of the nineteenth century, the piece was considered one of the greatest violin concertos in the repertoire. It would become one of Mendelssohn's most popular pieces, and was still regularly performed, even when interest in his music declined in the early twentieth century. In 1906, the year before his death, celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim told the guests at his 75th birthday party:

"The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven's. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart's jewel, is Mendelssohn's."

Joachim, who was nominally a pupil of Ferdinand David and Mendelssohn's protégé gave one of the first performances of the concerto at the age of only 12. Also Bruch and Brahms both dedicated their violin concertos to Joachim, with Brahms even allowing Joachim to write his own cadenza which was no longer the norm at the time.

The work has developed a reputation as an essential work for all aspiring violin virtuosi to conquer. Even so, the concerto is still technically challenging and is generally considered to be as difficult as many other famous counterparts.

Mendelssohn also wrote a violin concerto with strings in 1822, which was given its 20th century premiere in 1952 by Yehudi Menuhin. [The 1953 Menuhin/Boult recording is available here as PASC052]