MENDELSSOHN - Bis

Breit kopf & Härtel: ‘I composed it in a few days, some what care lessly; despite
this it has always pleased the audi ence greatly, though I have little time for it’.
By contrast, Mendelssohn’s Concerto No. 2 in D minor for Piano and Orch -
estra has remained obscure and is rarely heard. He wrote it in response to a com -
mission from the Bir mingham Festival, and the composer himself played the solo
part at its first performance on 21st September 1837. Men dels sohn continued to
en joy great pop ularity in England, and the audi ence’s enthusiastic applause pre -
vent ed him from sitting down to perform for some min utes. Even though this
con certo is in fact a more profound work, Mendels sohn’s youthful spark was not
evident enough for it to claim a position in the standard reper toire.
Disc 10 · Concerto for Violin and Piano; Concert Pieces
On 6th May 1823, the fourteen-year-old Felix Men delssohn com pleted a Con -
certo in D minor for Vio lin, Piano and Strings. It was a large-scale work lasting
some 35 minutes, and it shows a sure sense of form as well as containing much
virtuoso writing. The young composer had certainly dev el oped signi ficantly since
the previous year, when he wrote a violin con certo in the same key. At that time
he was already an extremely productive com pos er, developing im pres sive in -
sights and gathering wide experi ence. On this occasion, too, he took clas sical
com posers such as Haydn and Mozart as his models, but early Ro manticism can
certainly also be found in this work. The orchestral writing is relatively straight -
forward but it is also highly ef fective.
The concerto opens with embellishments in a Bach-like counterpoint, from
which a romantic appassionato grows, counterbalanced by a lyrical second
theme. The interplay between the two solo ists is surprisingly mature; each of
them also has a fine selection of individual challenges, and is per mitted to shine
alongside the orchestra. In the slow move ment the orchestra is kept in the back -
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