Introduction
Felix Mendelssohn was one of the most famous composers during the 19th century. Although in his music he did show some features of romanticism, he was strongly influenced by traditional genres such as counterpoint etc. In this essay, the biography of the composer, background of the genre and analysis of the piece will be investigated
Biographical Sketch of Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg in 1809. His father Abraham Mendelssohn was a banker, while his mum Lea Mendelssohn was a highly educated artist and musician. Mendelssohn first had his piano lesson from his mum, but soon he was sent to study with the best teachers at that time such as Marie Bigot and Ludwig Burger. He also took composition lessons with Karl Zelter, who was the professor of the University of Berlin. Under their proper guidance, he completely showed his music talent- he first appeared as pianist at nine and as a composer at ten. At his age of twelve, he already composed nine fugues, five symphonies for strings, two operas and a huge number of smaller pieces. When he was sixteen, the publication of his Octet in E-flat Major for strings and Overture to A Mid Summer Night’s Dream marked his full maturity.
In 1829, he left his hometown and started his music tour to Italy, France and England. During this period of time, he published many significant compositions, which included the overture Die Hebriden (1829), the Reformation Symphony (1830) and the Italian Symphony (1832) etc.
Besides composing, he also worked as a conductor in Düsseldorf (1833-35) and Leipzig (1835-40). And in 1843, he established a new conservatory in Leipzig. Up to this point, Mendelssohn was already a well-known pianist, composer and conductor.
Unfortunately, ex...
... middle of paper ...
...e bass part
Another distinctive feature is the rising importance of the woodwind section. Before the 19th century, the string section played a main role in presenting the melody while woodwind instruments were only adopted to create some orchestral colors to the piece. However, the use of the woodwinds became very different during the 19th century that not only melodies were assigned to them, sometimes they were even accompanied by the strings (Ex 4):
Ex. 4 Rising importance of the woodwind in the orchestra
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the Italian Symphony does reflect the features of a 19th century orchestral piece. Most importantly, it totally demonstrates Mendelssohn’s mature composition style of combining both classical genres and romantic style together within a piece. This explains why he is regarded as one of the most important figures in the music history.
Mendelsohn as a Master-Craftsman in the Art of Instrumentation Mendelsohn wrote the Hebrides overture in the summer of 1829 in response to seeing and walking in the Hebrides and in paticular visiting Fingal's Cave on an island in the outer Hebredies. Like Mozart before him, he was regarded as a child prodigy and composed several works before he was seventeen. Therefore when we consider the question posed, we must acknowledge Mendelsohn set about writing his concert overture with an esteemed background. The concert overture has many different forms but Mendelsohn used Sonata form for his Hebrides overture (a common decision to make in this Classical period). It could be argued that Sonata form is indicative of Mendelsohn's relative conservatism as it has a fairly strict pattern to follow, both in terms of form, key and temperement: It is clear that Mendelsohn did indeed use three contrasting passages with the addition of the 52 bar long Coda (normally a more brief concluding passage at the end of a work).
While Tchaikovsky is known for his compositions of classical ballet, he was overall great as a pianist. Like most composers of music, his compositions reflected that of his feelings greatly, which helped him connect to the public and spread his music quite well. As a child, he became better than his teacher in one year, and at the age of ten went to the School of Jurisprudence and quickly completed the upper division classes. After graduating, he did four years at the Ministry of Justice, which didn’t really suite him well. Once out of the Ministry of Justice in the 1860s, he joined the Music Conservatory at the age of 22. Shortly after joining, he composed his first orchestral score in 1864. Two years later, he settled down in Moscow and started to increase his fame as a composer. In the following years he would tour around Europe and even into the United States. In 1893, six days after the premiere of his last piece he
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was undoubtedly one of the greatest composers of not only the classical era, but of all time. On January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria, Mozart was born into an already musically talented family. His father Leopold, a composer and musician, and sister Nannerl toured parts of Europe giving many successful performances, including some before royalty. At the young age of 17, Mozart was appointed Konzertmeister at the Salzburg Court. It was there that young Mozart composed two successful operas: “Mitridate” and “Lucio Silla”. In 1981 he was dismissed from his position at the Salzburg Court. He went on to compose over 600 works including 27 piano Concertos, 18 Masses (including his most famous, the Requiem), and 17 piano sonatas. Mozart was not often known for having radical form or harmonic innovation but rather, most of his music had a natural flow, repetition and simple harmonic structure.
Some of the most well known composers came to be in the in the classical music period. Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the composers, along with other greats of the time like Haydn and Mozart, which helped to create a new type of music. This new music had full rich sounds created by the new construction of the symphony orchestra.
Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia on September 25, 1906, Shostakovich was the second of three children born to Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina. His father was of Polish descent but both his parents were Siberian natives. Dmitri was a child prodigy as a pianist and composer. He began taking piano lessons from his mother at the age of nine. He displayed an incredible talent to remember what his mother had played at the previous lesson and would get caught pretending to read the music, playing the music from his last lesson instead of what was placed in front of him.
As his fame spread throughout Europe, it spread to the United States as well. He was invited in 1892 to the National Conservatory in New York City where he became the artistic director. At the time, he was earning a little less than $500 a month as a professor at the Prague Conservatory. When he took the job at the National Conservatory, he made a salary of $15,000 a year. He served at the Conservatory for three years and wrote some of his best-known music during his time, which includes his Symphony #9 in E minor.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed an exemplary piece of classical music that can be seen in television and films of the twenty-first century. Mozart would hear a complete piece in his head before he would write it down. He created pieces that had simple melodies, but also the orchestration sounded rich. Out of the forty-one symphonies Mozart composed, I have chosen Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor or better known as The Great G Minor Symphony, written in 1788. Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 is considered the most popular out of all forty-one symphonies because the opening movement is very memorable. Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 is effectively composed through the use of a specific form, elements of music, and using the appropriate instruments so one can see brilliant scenes unfolding.
one cantata a week while he was music director at Leipzig. Due to the pace
To satisfy the middle-class amateur, classic composers supplied a ton of new chamber music for all imaginable combinations. The piano sonata became a very important form of chamber music, especially after being refined by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. After 1765, the string quartet began to increasingly dominate the chamber music field.
...as he paved the way for composers of the Romantic period like Ludwig van Beethoven, Gioachino Rossini, and Franz Schubert. No one can doubt the finality that mirrors Mozart’s life in his final symphony and his final farewell.
Historical. This brilliant composition is considered as one of the two most important violin concertos of the German Romantic period, with Mendelssohn’s vi...
Mendelssohn followed the footsteps of his predecessors, like Mozart, and followed guidelines and structures laid out in the Classical Era while continuing to search out the advancing ideas of Romanticism. The Overture is probably one of the most profound of his pieces. It is perhaps the earliest example of a concert overture, a piece not deliberately written to accompany a staged performance, but to evoke a literary theme in performance on a concert platform. This idea soon became a popular genre form in the Romantic Era. One of the events that gained Mendelssohn his popularity was his revival of Bach's St. Matthew Passion in 1829. This performance of the almost forgotten masterpiece was an important element in the advancement of J. S. Bach's music throughout Europe. His first paid post as a musician was in 1833 when Mendelssohn was musical director between Britain and Dusseldorf. Like his performance of Bach, Mendelssohn reawakened interest in Handel after directing a performance of Handel's oratorio Israel in Egypt. In an interview with the German television station ZDF in 2006, Hans Zimmer remarked: “My father died when I was just a child, and I escaped somehow into the music and music has been my best friend.” Zimmer began his career playing keyboards and synthesizers in 1970s with the band Krakatoa. Throughout the next ten years, he played his instruments for and helped produce
He became a conductor of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna but still continued his work as a composer. Brahms spent the rest of his life in Vienna. Some of his compositions are Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Violin Sonata in D Minor, and String Quintet in F Major. His compositions continued to grow in later years and had been sold well. He now had earned a lot of money and could do what he liked, but he often gave his money to his friends and other young musicians. At age sixty, Brahms’ production decreased, and he often destroyed his finished pieces if he felt unsatisfied about them. He gave up composing in 1890 but came back at it again. His admiration moved him to compose a number of acknowledged
Ludwig van Beethoven, an innovative German virtuoso pianist, was born on December 17th, 1770 in Bonn, Germany and passed away in Vienna, Austria on March 26th, 1827 at 56 years-old. Among Beethoven’s 9 symphonies, his Fifth in C minor is one of the most significant pieces in Classical music history and demonstrates an outstanding piece of musical work that has been performed for several years as one of Beethoven’s most famous symphonies. Symphony No. 5 was composed between 1804 and 1807 during the same time as Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (better known as the “heroic” symphony) and was first performed on December 22nd, 1808. His first performance occurred seven years after Beethoven’s hearing deficiency was found in June 1801. Symphony No. 5 remains highly significant in the history of classical music because this piece played an essential role during the transition between the Classical and Romantic periods of music during the Enlightenment period, resulting in a major influence on society.
Mozart was born on Jan. 27, 1756, in Salzburg, Austria. His father was Leopold Mozart, a composer and a popular violinist. Mozart received his early musical training from his father. At the early age of 3 Mozart showed signs of being a musical genius. Then, at the age of five Mozart started composing. Beginning in 1762 Mozart’s father took young Mozart and his older sister, Maria Anna, on tours in Europe where they played the piano, harpsichord, violin, and organ, together and separately. Mozart learned to play the piano, harpsichord, and violin from his father. He gave public concerts and played at numerous courts and received several commissions.