The first performance was from manuscript at the twentieth Gewandhaus concert in Leipsic, March 13, 1845. Ferdinand David was the violinist. Niels W. Gade conducted.
The concerto is in three connected movements. The first, allegro molto appassionato, E minor, 2-2, begins immediately after an introductory measure with the first theme given out by the solo violin. This theme is developed at length by the solo instrument, which then goes on with cadenza-like passage-work, after which the theme is repeated and developed as a tutti by the full orchestra. The second theme is first given out pianissimo in harmony by clarinets and flutes over a sustained organ-point in the solo instrument. The chief theme is used in the development which begins in the solo violin. The brilliant solo cadenza ends with a series of arpeggios, which continue on through the whole announcement of the first theme by orchestral strings and wind. The conclusion section is in regular form. There is no pause between this movement and the andante.
The first section of the andante, C major, is a development of the first theme sung by the solo violin. The middle part is taken up with the development of the second theme, a somewhat agitated melody. The third part is a repetition of the first, with the melody in the solo violin, but with a different accompaniment. Mendelssohn originally intended the accompaniment (strings) to the first theme to be played pizzicato. He wrote to David, “I intended to write in this way, but something or other—I don’t know what—prevented me.”
The finale opens with a short introduction, allegretto non troppo, E minor, 4-4. The main body of the finale, allegro molto vivace, E major, 4-4, begins with calls on horns, trumpets, bassoons, drums, answered by arpeggios of the solo violin and tremolos in the strings. The chief theme of the rondo is announced by the solo instruments. The orchestra has a second theme, B major; the violin one in G major. In the recapitulation section the fortissimo second theme appears again, this time in E major. There is a brilliant coda.
Mendelssohn used the following orchestration for the works discussed in this chapter (save for the addition of an ophicleide in the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream): two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, kettledrums, and strings.—EDITOR.
MODESTE PETROVITCH
MOUSSORGSKY
(Born at Karevo, district of Toropeta, in the government of Pskov, on March 28, 1835; died at St. Petersburg on March 28, 1881)
“A NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN” (“UNE NUIT SUR LE MONT-CHAUVE”); FANTASY FOR ORCHESTRA
Posthumous Work Completed and Orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov
Moussorgsky’s fantasy was composed in 1867 and was thus one of the few early Russian orchestral compositions of a fantastically picturesque nature. In the original form it was no doubt crude, for Moussorgsky had little technic for the larger forms of music; he despised “style,” and believed that much knowledge would prevent him from attaining the realism that was his goal. That he himself was not satisfied with this symphonic poem is shown by the fact that he revised it two or three times. He died; Rimsky-Korsakov edited it and orchestrated it. The music was finally heard after Moussorgsky’s death. Rimsky-Korsakov was a fastidious musician, a learned harmonist, a master of orchestrations. It is said that he sandpapered and polished Boris Godounov to the great detriment of Moussorgsky’s opera; he chastened the wild spirit; he tamed the native savageness, so it is said. What did he do to this musical picture of a Witches’ Sabbath on Bald Mountain?
Having heard several musical descriptions of these unholy Sabbaths, where reverence was paid Satan, exultantly ruling in the form of a he-goat, where there was horrid, obscene revelry, if we may believe well-instructed ancient and modern writers on Satanism and witchcraft, we wonder why any woman, young or old, straddled a broomstick and made her way hopefully and joyfully to a lonely mountain or barren plain. If we can put faith in the musical descriptions given by Berlioz, Boïto, Gounod, Satan’s evening receptions were comparatively tame affairs, with dancing of a nature that would not have offended the selectmen and their wives and sisters of our little village in the sixties, when the waltz was frowned on as a sensual and ungodly diversion. Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz is, indeed, sensuous, fleshly, but Satan in this instance only plays the fiddle; he is not master of sabbatic revels. In Moussorgsky’s symphonic poem the allegro devoted to the worshipers of the devil is rather commonplace; its laborious wildness becomes monotonous in spite of the editor’s instrumentation. Far more original and effective is the second section, in which a church bell puts the blasphemous revelers to flight.