BPO celebrates the prodigy's 200th birthday

Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn was born on February 3, 1809, in Hamburg, Germany, and classical musicians and arts organizations around the world are celebrating the bicentennial of his birth this year.

A few weeks ago, Portuguese guest conductor Álvaro Cassuto kicked off the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s Mendelssohn bicentennial celebration, leading a pair of all Mendelssohn programs that featured the Symphony No. 5, “Reformation” and a beautifully nuanced performance of the Concerto in E minor for Violin and Orchestra by the American violin virtuoso Robert McDuffie, along with the Hebrides Overture. In years past, BPO series programs have featured many performances of the works on that program, particularly the Violin Concerto, which has appeared on no fewer than 15 times. Likewise, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3, “Scottish,” Symphony No. 4, “Italian,” and Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, as well as the A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture and Incidental Music have enjoyed many BPO performances.

On Sunday, April 26 at 2:30pm, the BPO, together with the BPO Chorus, continues the celebration with a single, all Mendelssohn program at Kleinhans Music Hall that is being billed as “Mendelssohn’s Magic.” The concert will feature the BPO and the BPO Chorus premier of the Symphony No. 2in B-Flat, Op.52 “Lobgesang,” (“Hymn of Praise”), and the Psalm 114 (“When Israel out of Egypt came”) for Double Chorus and Orchestra in G major, Op. 51, and will include the popular overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Doreen Rao, recently appointed music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus, will make her BPO conducting debut, with, as soloists, sopranos Tony Arnold, Holly Bewlay, and tenor Derek Chester.

Mendelssohn was a true child prodigy, whose precocious musical development rivaled, and even surpassed that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in the view of some historians of music, based on the String Octet in E-flat Major, composed when he was 16, and the iridescent Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the work of a boy of 17.

The compositional ordering of the Mendelssohn’s symphonies is a little confusing. Between the ages of 12 and 14, he composed 12 string symphonies. These delightful early works, lost for more than 125 years, resurfaced in 1950, and they have since been recorded many times and sometimes show up on chamber orchestra music programs. Composed by Mendelssohn at the age of 15, the Symphony No. 1 in C minor was his first symphony for full-scale orchestra. That work, rarely performed today, and never by the BPO, was conducted very successfully by the composer on his first trip to London, and it became the foundation for his high British reputation.

The numbering of the last four Mendelssohn symphonies more or less follows the order of their publication. The second symphony that he composed, which we now know as the Symphony No. 5, “Reformation,” written to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Lutheran Church, was a success but dissatisfied the composer, who never allowed it to be published. The Symphony No. 4 in E major, “Italian” premiered next, in 1833, and though it may nowadays be his most popular symphony, the composer was never quite happy with it, rewriting it many times and not allowing it to be published either. The popular Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, “Scottish,” written in 1833 and revised several times, was published in 1843.

The Symphony No. 2 in B flat, Op.52 “Lobgesang,” (“Hymn of Praise”), composed in 1840 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg’s invention of movable type, is a massive work. In part inspired by and equal in length to Beethoven’s choral Symphony No. 9, it was the fifth and final symphony composed by Mendelssohn. The composer directed that the four-movement work be played without pause. The initial first sinfonia section is a purely instrumental half hour of music that consists of three movements. An introductory section precedes the opening allegro, followed first by a scherzo, and finally by an adagio religioso, with a trombone theme from the introduction acting as a binding element that appears in various guises throughout the symphony. The final 40 minutes of the work is in baroque cantata form, with arias and recitative sections, duets and choruses, all based on biblical texts offering praise to the Lord. The work maintains a highly dramatic flow of tension, finally released in the huge, thrilling choral finale: “Ihr Volker! bringet her dem Herrn.” (My people! Bring forth the Lord.)

Unless you have figured out a way to stick around for the Mendelssohn tercentenary celebration in 2109, you would be well advised to purchase your tickets early so that you will not miss the opportunity to attend the first performance in the 73-year history of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra of the Mendelssohn Symphony No. 2 in B-Flat, Op.52 “Lobgesang.”

For ticket information, visit www.bpchorus.org or call 716-885-5000.