Mendelssohn: Violin Concertos

Featuring

Lev Markiz
Isabelle van Keulen
Amsterdam Sinfonietta
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

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Notable Performances

Mendelssohn's Concerto in D minor only entered the modern repertory in the early 1950s after Yehudi Menuhin acquired an autograph and gave its public premiere in Carnegie Hall in 1952.

Composition History

The Concerto in D minor was written for Eduard Rietz, Mendelssohn's violin teacher and a regular participant in string quartet performances at the Mendelssohn household.

Composer Biography

Mendelssohn's two violin concertos were composed at opposite ends of his career, with the D minor concerto written when he was a teenager and the E minor concerto in his final years.

Composition History

The commonly performed version of Mendelssohn's E minor Concerto differs in numerous details from the composer's original 1844 notation, having undergone repeated revisions over seven years.

Cultural Impact

Mendelssohn's sister Fanny described the Scherzo from the Octet as evoking a 'spirit world' where one feels 'carried away in the air,' even 'inclined to snatch up a broomstick and follow the airy procession,' alluding to Goethe's Faust.

Historical Context

The 1844 autograph of the E minor concerto was rediscovered after being moved for safekeeping during a 1941 attack on Berlin and was feared destroyed until a Benedictine monk divulged its fate.

Compositional Technique

Even at thirteen, Mendelssohn showed originality in his D minor concerto, using novel harmonic progressions, a written-out cadenza in the middle of the third movement, and cyclic unification.