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Mendelssohn: Works
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In 1833 Mendelssohn was appointed "Municipal Music Director" at Düsseldorf, and it was there that he began his oratorio St. Paul, a work which has been quite eclipsed in popularity by the companion Elijah. The Düsseldorf engagement formed really the starting-point in his professional career. Hitherto home influences had prevailed; now he was to be dependent on himself. Unfortunately he did not find the Düsseldorf duties agreeable. He complained that by four in the afternoon half the town was drunk, so that he had to do all his business in the morning. And the band was far from being to his mind.
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The best all-around work in English on Mendelssohn is Eric Werner, Mendelssohn: A New Image of the Composer and His Age (trans. 1963). Also useful are Percy M. Young, Introduction to the Music of Mendelssohn (1949), and Philip Radcliffe, Mendelssohn (1954). For a detailed approach to one of Mendelssohn's major works, which is much broader in its approach than the title suggests, Jack Werner, Mendelssohn's "Elijah": A Historical and Analytical Guide to the Oratorio (1965), is strongly recommended. For general historical background see Donald Jay Grout, A History of Western Music (1960).
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In 1829 Mendelssohn paid his first visit to Britain, where Moscheles, already settled in London, introduced him to influential musical circles. He had a great success, conducting his First Symphony and playing in public and private concerts. In the summer he visited Edinburgh and became a friend of the composer John Thomson. On subsequent visits he met with Queen Victoria and her musical husband Prince Albert, both of whom were great admirers of his music. In the course of ten visits to Britain during his life he won a strong following, and the country inspired two of his most famous works, the overture Fingal's Cave (... known as the Hebrides Overture) and the Scottish Symphony (Symphony No. 3). His oratorio Elijah was premiered in Birmingham at the Triennial Music Festival on 26 August 1846.
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Twenty-five years after the Prize Essay, Mendelssohn continues to struggle with the issue of idealism in Morning Hours, his final metaphysical work. At times he plainly appears to be moving toward a position that straddles an idealist/non-idealist divide. He views inquiry into something "extra-conceptual" as tantamount to "investigating a concept that is actually not supposed to be a concept and ... must be something contradictory" (Gesammelte Schriften, 3/2, pp. 60f). A further tilt in the direction of idealism is apparent in his rejection of the traditional definition of truth as an agreement of things with thoughts, on the ground that the copy (the thought) cannot be compared with original (the thing). Since thoughts can be compared with one another, he turns to them for a determination of truth, though it is not clear how this move can avoid idealism.
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Five years later, in 1843, Mendelssohn completed his second 'cello sonata, Op. 58. On November 18th of the same year he ... played with the 'cellist Carl Wittmann. The difference of the second sonata from the first sonata reflects the pressures of Mendelssohn's life at that time: In order to maintain his career, he was constantly commuting between Berlin and Leipzig. This caused a stress to his psychological and physical condition which was reflected in his second sonata. This work is composed of four movements. Of course, the character of this piece is quite different from that of the first sonata.
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Before entering upon his new duties, Mendelssohn paid a fourth visit to London, with his father, returning to Düsseldorf on the 27th of September 1833. His influence produced as excellent effect upon the church music and in the concert-room; but his relations with the management of the theater were not altogether pleasant; and it was probably this circumstance which first led him to forsake the cultivation of the opera for that of sacred music. At Düsseldorf he first designed his famous oratorio St. Paul, in response to an application from the Cäcilien-Verein at Frankfurt, composed his overture to Die schöne Melusine, and planned some other works of importance. He liked his appointment, and would probably have retained it much longer had he not been invited to undertake the permanent direction of the Gewandhaus concerts at Leipzig, and ... raised to the highest position attainable in the German musical world. To this new sphere of labor he removed in August 1835, opening the first concert at the Gewandhaus, on the 4th of October, with his overture Die Meeresstille, a work possessing great attractions, though by no means on a level with the Midsummer Night's Dream, The Isles of Fingal, or Melusine.
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