New Millennium Strings

Concerts | Musicians | Rehearsals | Supporters | Board | Contact Us

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave)

Violin Concerto, Op. 64 in E Minor

Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg on February 3, 1809, and died in Leipzig on November 4, 1847. Mendelssohn was born into a wealthy family and enjoyed a privileged childhood. His family converted from Judaism to Protestantism in 1916, and at that time the additional name Bartholdy was added. While Mendelssohn was still a child, his parents hosted a salon where many eminent musicians visited. In 1821, he read the literature of Goethe (whom he had met) and he also enjoyed the Schlagel translations of Shakespeare. His early life was surrounded by music and literature.

Besides becoming a young and talented composer, he excelled as a pianist and a conductor. He was the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and he also established a Conservatory there. In 1829 he began a revival of public interest in J.S. Bach's works. He conducted a performance of the St. Matthew Passion, which was the first time the work had been heard in over 100 years.

Mendelssohn's travels to England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales in 1829 influenced his musical ideas. The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) (1832) and Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (1828-32) are both one movement symphonic poems which feature the programmatic images of the sea. Fingal's Cave was inspired by the sight of the sea surging over the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. In Scottish mythology, a story describes the life of a giant, Finn McCool, who is an Ulster warrior and commander of the King of Ireland's armies. The mythology offers an explanation for the freaksih geological formation so named the Giant's Causway. Finn inhabited a 'draughty Antrim headland' ... where 'he lived most happy and content, Obeyed no law and paid no rent.' When Finn fell in love with a lady giant on Staffa, an island in the Hebrides, he build the 'commodious highway to bring her across to Ulster.' The 40,000 lava stone columns which make up the Causeway are 40 feet high. Mendelssohn's romantic depiction of this landscape is apparent in the Hebrides.

The Violin Concerto, Op. 64 in E Minor was composed in 1844. It is considered one of the most popular violin concerti in the entire literature. It was premiered with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra on March 13, 1845. The violin soloist was Ferdinand David, who was an eminent violinist and a good friend of Mendelssohn. The composer's violin student Joseph Joachim performed the concerto many times during his career and considered it 'the dearest of the German violin concertos ... the heart's jewel.' In 1842-1844 Mendelssohn had begun to compose a piano concerto in E Minor, but abandoned it for the violin concerto.

-- program notes by Laurien Jones

August, 2002