Notes for: July 16, 2013
By the time he reached his 30th birthday, Mendelssohn was arguably the busiest musician in Europe. He had already served four years as the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus – then as now one of Europe’s foremost orchestras – and had revived the choral and orchestral music of Johann Sebastian Bach. He had made five successful concert visits to London as a conductor and concert pianist. And he had written and published, to wide acclaim, his “Reformation” and “Italian” Symphonies, oratorio St. Paul, two piano concertos, five string quartets and 18 Songs Without Words.
Not many of the other great composers had won such broad recognition in so few years. And to top it all, he was happily married and in good health, and he had every reason to look forward to a long career of continuing musical success and public adulation. In retrospect, of course, there was a tragic irony in all this. His fragile health faltered under the strain, and he lived only eight more years.
Mendelssohn’s life became even more hectic in 1844, the year of this work’s composition. His services were now in demand all over Western Europe. In addition to the Leipzig orchestra and his repeated visits to England, he served as a guest conductor in Berlin. He taught piano and composition at the new Leipzig Conservatory of which he was the founder. And he somehow found time to compose his Violin Concerto, now one of the treasures of the violin repertory.
By the year’s end, he was exhausted from all this activity, and was showing the first signs of the declining health that was to end in his death two years later. Consequently at the start of 1845, his family persuaded him to take a long sabbatical before resuming his conducting duties in Leipzig the following September.
For this respite, Mendelssohn and his wife settled in Frankfort, the residence of Felix’s brother and sisters, and in the nearby resort town of Bad Soden, a favorite spot for his composition. Without the pressure of outside commitments, Mendelssohn returned to composing chamber music, for which his career had left little time. The result was two major works – his second Piano Trio and his second String Quintet. In the case of the String Quintet, he was reverting to a form that he had not used for nearly 20 years – the string quartet with an extra viola.
Independently wealthy, Mendelssohn was in no hurry to publish his music, and he left at his death some 250 works. This quintet was not published until three years after his death, and then at the instigation of his family.
In the quintet’s first movement, allegro vivace, the first violin announces an impetuous and muscular theme over tremolos in the other instruments. A triplet figure interrupts the melody, returns to accompany the more flowing second theme, and is to become a recurring feature of the movement. The development section is long and complex, ending with an exciting buildup to the return of the opening theme.
The second movement is a scherzo, though at an andante pace and in 6/8 rather than 3/4 time. It has the playfulness and delicacy characteristic of Mendelssohn’s scherzos, but is slower than usual. The movement is seasoned by the use of pizzicato and staccato bowing, displaced accents, fugal treatment of its themes, and fluctuations between the major and minor modes.
The slow movement – marked adagio and lento to emphasize the point - offers some of Mendelssohn’s most passionate music. The structure is free and rhapsodic, and the mood verges on the operatic in its emotional expression, dramatic harmonies, and varied dynamics. The second theme, over an agitated rhythm, is surely one of Mendelssohn’s most poignant statements.
After the third movement’s intensity, the finale, allegro molto vivace, ends the quintet on a more light-hearted note. As in the first movement, the first violin states the vigorous main theme, and the more lyrical second theme is introduced by the two violas. The development introduces a third theme – six accented quarter notes that descend chromatically (in half-steps). After extensive development of all three themes, the third theme returns with renewed force.
Notes for: July 29, 2025
The outlines of Mendelssohn’s life are familiar: He was the most beloved composer of his lifetime, an extravagantly gifted child prodigy who had composed fugues, symphonies, and operas by the time he was 12; who stunned the musical world with his glorious Octet, written when he was 16; who set off a Bach revival when at 20 he conducted Bach’s St. Matthew Passion; who as a conductor turned the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra into a European powerhouse; who founded the prestigious Leipzig Conservatory; who toured Europe as a brilliant pianist, was especially beloved in England, and won the admiration and friendship of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
In 1844 an exhausted Mendelssohn took a break from his travels and retired to Frankfurt to rest and compose. Among his new works was this String Quintet in B-Flat Major (sometimes referred to as the Viola Quintet). While he had composed his impressive first string quintet years earlier, at the age of 17, this one is considered a “mature masterpiece” – ironic, since he was still only 38 when he wrote it. Ironic, too, that it wasn’t published during Mendelssohn’s lifetime because he never thought it was good enough. Yet it’s a masterful demonstration of what Charles Rosen called Mendelssohn’s “control of large-scale structure unsurpassed by any composer of his generation.” The seamlessly constructed first movement is a good example. From two contrasting themes – the first violin’s exuberant rising arpeggios over tremolos, and the viola’s softer, more lyrical, falling second theme – Mendelssohn constructs a dramatic, forward-surging movement driven by tremolos, swirling triplets, and an orchestral-sounding fullness from the strings.
While the first movement’s exhilarating spirit has frequently been compared to that of the Octet, the second movement, Andante scherzando, is a variant of another familiar Mendelssohn form, the scherzo. Although slower than Mendelssohn’s usual scherzo, this dancelike scherzando is typically light and graceful, with pizzacatos adding playfulness. Then the mood of the Quintet takes a dramatic turn. After the exuberance of the first movement and the playfulness of the second, the Adagio e lento turns dark and mournful. The movement opens in a somber minor-key mode with what sounds like a funeral march, with a steady beat of dotted rhythms under a dirge-like cello. The violin introduces a second, lyrical theme in G Major, and for the rest of the movement minor and major vie for dominance. In a stunning ending the major key is ascendant, as pathos gives way to calm. Geniality is restored in the festive Allegro molto vivace, which ends with a triumphal flourish. With its fugal imitations and contrapuntal complexities, the movement reflects Mendelssohn’s love of Bach. It’s also the movement that dissatisfied him and caused him to withhold the work from publication.