70904 for PDF 11/05 - Ivory Classics

Church of Saint-Pères declares that “God gave him. . . a truly Christian patience in the sharp
pain of his last illness.”
The so-called Suite de Pièces was not actually assembled by Lully. Lully’s fame was so great
that his editors often collected his dances and published them as keyboard suites. These transcriptions
from Lully’s operas and ballets were particularly abundant in the nineteenth century
and appeared in editions produced by Théodore Lack and Louis Oesterle. Shura
Cherkassky performed Lully’s Suite de Pièces utilizing as a point of musical departure
Oesterle’s edition published by G. Schirmer in 1904. Cherkassky changes the order of the
pieces, making the suite more cohesive, and adds his own touches of ornamentation in a very
Romantic style.
6 Mendelssohn: Scherzo a Capriccio in F-sharp minor
“Felix” (Latin for “the happy one”) was a well-chosen name for Mendelssohn, for the
Goddess of Fortune gave him her choicest gifts, a diadem of genius for his curly head, inherited
wealth from his father, a winning charm of manner and a graceful upright physique. The
frustrations, maladjustments, and conflicts of most great composers make the life of Felix
Mendelssohn as refreshing as sunshine. Born in Hamburg, February 3, 1809, Ludwig Felix
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was the grandson of the Jewish pragmatic philosopher, Moses
Mendelssohn – known as the “German Plato” – and son of the banker, Abraham
Mendelssohn. His mother Lea Salomon-Bartholdy was his first piano teacher. He studied
with Ludwig Berger (piano), Carl Friedrich Zelter (theory), and Wilhelm Hennig (violin). At
nine he played the piano part of a trio by Wolff in public; at ten he sang alto in the
Singakademie; at eleven he was introduced to Goethe who spoke the highest praises of his
piano-playing and insisted that the wunderkind stay with him in Baden for two weeks. At
their first meeting the poet requested he play a Bach fugue, and though he forgot a part of
the composition, he was able to extemporize the missing portion weaving contrapuntal lines
into a heavy brocaded baroque fabric that pleased all who were present for the performance.
Shortly after Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony came out, Mendelssohn, then 15, could play it all
on the piano without a score. At seventeen he wrote the overture to Shakespeare’s
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Light, aerial music was his unsurpassed speciality.
Between 1827 and 1835, Mendelssohn’s activity took him from city to city on the
Continent and in England. His popularity increased to a point where he was deluged with
invitations to the finest homes. In 1829 he conducted the first performance, after Bach’s
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