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Introduction: Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, Germany on 3rd February, 1809 into a distinguished and afflluent family of bankers, intellectuals and artists. A child prodigy, he produced his first composition in 1820; a constant stream of work continued throughout his relatively short life - he died in Leipzig on 4th November, 1847 at the age of just 38. These notes, which accompany Pristine Audio's Mendelssohn Edition, released to mark the 160th anniversary of his oratio Elijah, our first award-winning release for Divine Art, follow Mendelssohn's life through eight compositions newly remastered for August 2006.
The year 1842 proved to be quite significant for Mendelssohn, particularly with respect to royal appointments. In the spring of that year he had been appointed Kapellmeister to the King of Saxony, a post he had to resign just a few months later following negotiations with the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV, in Berlin. The newly crowned King was eager to found a new Academy of the Arts in the city, and had previously offered the post to Mendelssohn at the end of 1840. However with little clarification as to the exact duties required of him, the tempting salary of 3000 thaler a year and the prospect of living closer to the rest of his family seemed like it might never materialise. Finally, after much tedious correspondence with officials, Mendelssohn decided to take matters in hand and arranged an audience with the King, planning to tend his resignation. Fortunately here things were greatly clarified - for 1500 thaler a year he was relatively free to live and travel where he liked, unless specifically required by the King to be in Berlin, pending the formation of fixed bodies of singers and performers. These negotiations appear to have required a good deal of skill and tact on the composer's part, and relations between the two continued to be friendly. One of the fruits of this arrangement was a commission from the King of Prussia for music for A Midsummer Night's Dream from which this Scherzo is taken. Mendelssohn had written a highly successful overture on the same theme in 1826, at the height of his inspiration, and when he returned to compose the rest some 17 years later, he was able to show in detail how the themes of that original overture were appropriate to the various elements of the play. This particular recording finds the Scherzo in piano solo form, in an arrangement made by Rachmaninoff.
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