today is mendelssohn's 200 birthday!

[hodi]

happy birthday to one of the greatest romantic composers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[communist]

happy birthday my second favorite composer!

[thalbergmad]

Happy Birthday Mendelssohn.

Thank you for boring me senseless with your mind numbing piano concerti and annoying staccato.

Love ThalXX

[communist]

Happy Birthday Mendelssohn.

Thank you for boring me senseless with your mind numbing piano concerti and annoying staccato.

Love ThalXX

are you referring to the staccato in his song without word op.19 no.6? if you are i agree they are pretty annoying.

[ramseytheii]

Elijah; Midsummer Night Dream; Calm Sea and Prosperous journey; Fingal's Cave; Octet; all of the Songs without Words; Rondo Capriccioso; Piano concerti; Violin concerto; Organ sonatas; Preludes and fugues; Piano trios; Lobgesang; Reformation Symphony; Scottish Symphony; Serious Variations; Ruy Blas - for a composer who I don't even consider my favorite, so much of his music is indispensable to me!

Walter Ramsey

[argerichfan]

Scottish Symphony, Fingal's Cave.  Travel to Oban, take the ferry to the Hebrides and voilà... all of sudden this music comes alive.   

Otherwise, I'm very partial to I waited for the Lord and that great Lutheran oratorio, St. Paul. 

Must disagree with Thal about the piano concertos, though I tend to prefer the D minor to its G minor sibling.  Then there's always the Capriccio in F# minor...

[ramseytheii]

Somehow I have never got acquainted with St Paul, being so in love with Elijah.  Perhaps I should take a listen!

Walter Ramsey

[claude_debussy]

The Italian Symphony .. one of the greatest 19th century masterworks for orchestra ..

d minor trio ...

octet .. written at age 16 - a true child genius

Songs Without Words

Wagner plagiarized him -

he brought J.S. Bach to the world

if you get married, your moment of completion has been scored by Mendelssohn 

he died young

he is still with us

Felix! 

... let us study a genius

[thalbergmad]

Scottish Symphony, Fingal's Cave.  Travel to Oban, take the ferry to the Hebrides and voilà... all of sudden this music comes alive.   

I did, but needed 2 ferries and a long coach journey, listening to a driver singing Jimmy Shand songs.

But yes, the music does come alive when you are actually there.

Thal

[go12_3]

Hooray for Mendelssohn whose music will live on forever, especially, Song Without Words,  a great composer.   = )

[goldentone]

I believe Mendelssohn's music has the attribute of perfection.  The Scherzo of the Scottish Symphony is a great example of this.  He had to have been a refined man, for it is definitely heard in his music.  Taut music.  And I think he had a poetic sense of proportion.

 

[michel dvorsky]

Elijah; Midsummer Night Dream; Calm Sea and Prosperous journey; Fingal's Cave; Octet; all of the Songs without Words; Rondo Capriccioso; Piano concerti; Violin concerto; Organ sonatas; Preludes and fugues; Piano trios; Lobgesang; Reformation Symphony; Scottish Symphony; Serious Variations; Ruy Blas - for a composer who I don't even consider my favorite, so much of his music is indispensable to me!

Walter Ramsey

Good list.

You're missing some of the best ones, though:

String Quartets, Quintets, Piano Quartets, PIANO TRIOS (C MINOR!!!), Piano Fantasie

[ahinton]

The Quartet in F minor Op. 80, anyone? Reputedly (though as one who pretends to be no Mendelssohn scholar I cannot vouch for the veracity of the claim) written not so much in sorrow as in anger at the death of his sister and unequivocally influenced by Beethoven's Op. 95 Quartet in the same key (and what's necessarily so wrong with that per se?), this piece is surely just about as disturbing and disturbed as the oft-vaunted nice cosy Mendelssohn ever got - can one imagine how un-amused his admirer Queen Victoria would have been at a hearing of it? A deeply intense and engaging work that stands at the peak of achievement of a composer who had already distinguished himself in mumerous chamber works, not least his two splendid piano trios...

Best,

Alistair