Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)
Violin Concerto in E minor Op. 64

Concerto in E minor was written in September 1844, at Soden near Frankfurt, where Mendelssohn was finally able to take a holiday with his family. On March 13th the following year in Leipzig, the Gewandhaus concertmaster Ferdinand David premiered the work to great acclaim; after all, the concerto was written for him in the first place. All this was taking place towards the end of Mendelssohn’s contract with Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, which proved so detrimental to the composer’s health. Mendelssohn had been charged to reorganise the musical life in Berlin. He had not undertaken this task for money – he was quite well off. Yet a couple of years spent in Berlin had taught him that even with the king on his side he could not win against stupidity, ill-will and bureaucracy. What he had been unable to achieve in Berlin he later managed of his own will in Leipzig.
The concerto is beyond any doubt an expression of hope for a change of fate, a work full of energy, harmony, a testimony of its author regaining his balance. It was also immediately hailed as a masterpiece and was one of the few pieces by Mendelssohn unforgotten by posterity at a time when his oeuvre was banned by the Nazi regime. Sadly, it is its very classic perfection that makes it seem nowadays a work precious and suave, to be performed in an easy and sentimental manner, so unfairly perceived as a feature of Mendelssohn’s style.
∙ Movement One (Allegro molto appassionato) is begun by a violin solo over a rolling accompaniment in a theme throbbing with emotion and very precisely delineated. Adding impulses to sounds by their rhythmical manipulation can also be observed in the second theme. The musical tissue here is thick, the narration has no respite, there are no empty spots, all is filled with hectic violin figurations.
∙ Movement Two (Andante) comes attacca in a relatively simple, tripartite form. It is in fact an intermezzo in the rhythm of a siciliana, with highly intense melodics, song-like and unpretentious.
∙ Movement Three is preceded by a bridge (Allegretto non troppo) containing an echo of the main theme of the first movement. Only then can the brilliant rondo (Allegro molto vivace) appear, maintained in its entirety in the peculiar atmosphere of Mendelssohn’s recently completed music to Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. This finale is characteristic in its unique combination of energy with light texture and singing qualities, a style developed by Mendelssohn at en early stage, somewhere around 1826. In Violin Concerto in E minor it took on an enchanting and virtuoso guise. At the same time, lightness does not imply here a lack of import. Quite to the contrary: this concerto is inimitable and cannot be mistaken with any other work. To some degree, it is a model, as evidenced by its genre’s later history throughout the 19th century.

Maciej Negrey