70904 for PDF 11/05 - Ivory Classics

death, of the great St. Matthew Passion. The
next several years saw the production of many
important works, among which were the first
volume of the Songs Without Words, the
Hebrides Overture, the Italian and
Reformation symphonies and the G minor
Piano Concerto. In 1835, Mendelssohn
became the conductor of the Gewandhaus
Orchestra in Leipzig, and eight years after that
he helped to found the Leipzig Conservatory.
On May 8, 1847 after a grueling concert
schedule in England, taking a rest in Frankfurt
am Main, Mendelssohn was brought word of
his sister Fanny’s untimely death. She had been
rehearsing with a chamber group for a performance
in the family home when she suddenly
lost consciousness and died a few hours later.
This was more than Mendelssohn could bear.
He himself fell to the ground unconscious, a
blood vessel in his head ruptured mirroring the
phantom hemorrhage of his beloved Fanny,
Felix Mendelssohn
sharer of his hopes, and an emotional double of
his inner self. There seemed no joy left in the world for Mendelssohn from that point on.
Mendelssohn a young man of thirty-eight died of a paralytic stroke on the fourth of November
1847. He was put to rest in the family vault in Berlin.
Mendelssohn probably composed his little-known Scherzo a Capriccio in F-sharp minor in
1835-36. The piece was not given an opus number, but appeared in a collection called Album
des Pianistes, published in Bonn. This highly charged masterpiece is a blend of vitality and
poignancy. The scherzo is built from the alternation of several contrasting themes or segments,
the first light and staccato, the second more legato and expressive, and a third marked
con fuoco (with fire). This and other neglected piano works by Mendelssohn were always
favorites of Shura Cherkassky, who played them since his childhood.
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