NOSPR / Humala / Sham / In the Midday Light - NOSPR

Travel broadens the mind, as the old adage has it, and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s three-movement Piano Concerto in G minor, Op 25 stands as a clear testament to this truth. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, the twenty-year-old composer journeyed through Great Britain, Scotland, Weimar, France (Paris), and – for the longest stretch – Italy (Venice, Rome, Naples, and Milan). The impressions of these travels resonate throughout the concerto: in the radiant, sun-filled opening Molto allegro con fuoco, in the deeply felt, hymn-like Andante, and in the closing, triumphant Presto. Piano Concerto No 1 in G minor, Op 25 – premiered by its composer in 1831 in Munich – won over the hearts of audiences, although Felix Mendelssohn admitted that he had written it ‘in but a few days and almost carelessly’. Hector Berlioz would later remark that, after several dozen performances, the Erard piano refused to cooperate, and neither repairs, dismantling, nor even the ministrations of a priest with holy water could restore it.

With his instrumental concertos – for piano and violin alike – Mendelssohn effectively ushered in Romanticism. He was accompanied in this initiation (and in some respects even preceded) by another composer born in Germany: Carl Maria von Weber. His Symphony No 1 in C major, Op 19, composed between 1806 and 1807, bears witness to a deep-rooted attachment to tradition. The four-movement design of the cycle – a triumphant Allegro, a mournful Andante, a playful Scherzo with a trio, and a spirited final Presto – clearly recalls Beethoven’s achievements, while the lightness of texture and orchestration reveals an affinity (not only through Constanze) with Mozart.

Maria Wilczek-Krupa

Concert duration: aprroximately 60 minutes 

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