SKU: BR.PB-5581
ISBN 9790004213919. 10 x 12.5 inches.
A Programmatic Declaration of BeliefFelix Mendelssohn Bartholdy composed his Reformation Symphony for the celebrations marking the 300th anniversary of the Confessio Augustana, the Protestant declaration of faith. Owing to various and only partially explained reasons, there was no performance in 1830, the year in question; it was only two years later that the composer conducted the premiere of his work, now heavily revised, in Berlin. There was only one more performance in Mendelssohn's lifetime, this one conducted by Julius Rietz in Dusseldorf; the composer had since distanced himself from his opus.Conceived for the concert hall, the symphony formulates its theological references through the integration of various motives. This occurs in the finale, for example, in which Mendelssohn quotes the Luther chorale Ein feste Burg in the flute, from where it builds up to a triumphant principal theme. The strong extra-musical aspect must have been one of the reasons for the composer's later avoidance of this score, especially since Mendelssohn was becoming increasingly skeptical about explicitly programmatic music in the instrumental domain. Next to the Dusseldorf performance material of 1837, two scribal copies have been examined for the first time; they transmit the main stages of the version of 1830.
SKU: BR.PB-5598-07
ISBN 9790004214954. 6.5 x 9 inches.
SKU: BR.OB-5624-16
ISBN 9790004348673. 10 x 12.5 inches.
The Overture to Ruy Blas, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's last overture, was not composed as an autonomously conceived score, but as the opening piece of a stage work. Nevertheless, its immediate success at the Leipzig first performance in 1839, as well as the fact that no further contributions to Victor Hugo's drama followed from Mendelssohn's pen soon made it well known in the concert hall. The work's special history, including several arrangements occasioned by various performances, led to the fact that the overture had its largest circulation in the version of the posthumous first edition on which this edition is also based.First printing posthumously 1851 (Rietz).
SKU: BR.OB-5624-30
ISBN 9790004348710. 10 x 12.5 inches.
SKU: BR.OB-5623-30
ISBN 9790004348772. 10 x 12.5 inches.
Certainly Robert Schumann was right when he stated soon after Beethoven's death that the latter's conception of the symphony as a great, universal confessional work was hardly to be continued by the next generation of composers. He saw a solution to the dilemma in the creation of autonomous concert overtures, such as those written, for instance, by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Four of his overtures were printed during his lifetime, and others were extant in manuscript, though frequently and successfully performed by the composer. Belonging to the latter group is the Trumpet Overture, begun in 1825 and performed three times between 1828 und 1833 on prominent occasions in Berlin, Dusseldorf, and London.First printing posthumously 1851 (Rietz).
SKU: BR.PB-5522-07
ISBN 9790004212530. 6.5 x 9 inches.
To all extents and purposes, Germany is the land of artists, wrote Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in 1831 while on his travels in Italy; but Italy, he added, is the land of art. Indeed, everywhere he went in Italy, the 22-year-old composer found impulses for his symphony: I have to save the work until I have seen Naples. But although the country fired his inspiration: It will be the merriest piece that I have ever written, he did not actually write the Italian Symphony there. This did not occur until early 1833, when Mendelssohn obtained a commission from London, where he then conducted the first performance in May 1833. Begun the following year, his revision of the piece remained fragmentary, and the composer no longer performed the work himself. The familiar London version thus represents the only closed form of the work which the composer presented to the public. This is the version of the Italian Symphony that is now appearing in the Breitkopf Urtext collection based on the Complete Edition.
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