Philip Hale's Boston Symphony Programme Notes

by Philip Hale

How much of Italy is there in this symphony of Mendelssohn? Suppose there were no title. The last movement might easily be recognized as a saltarello; but how about the other movements? The first is light and gay, but there is no geographical or national mood at once established, there is no authoritative characterization. I doubt whether even a tambourine would be of material assistance. It was not necessary for the composer to go to Naples to write the andante. As for the scherzo, the horns with their pleasant sentimentalism might represent today Germans in Rome, armed with red guide books, and now and then bursting out in songs of the Fatherland, something about the forest, or spring, or the blissfulness of sorrow and longing. The saltarello part was done much better by Berlioz. Compare this symphony, so far as local color is concerned, with a page of Bizet painting in tones a Southern scene, or with Richard Strauss’ Italian suite, or with the suite of Charpentier, and Mendelssohn’s music seems without marked distinction, rather tame and drab. Yet the first movement and the finale are amiable music, pages that may awaken a gentlemanlike joy, and there is no denying the clearness of the musical thought, the purity of expression, the sure and polished workmanship.

The symphony was completed in Berlin. Mendelssohn wrote to Pastor Bauer, “My work about which I recently had many misgivings is completed, and, looking it over, I now find that, contrary to my expectations, it satisfies me. I believe it has become a good piece. Be that as it may, I feel it shows progress, and that is the main point.” The score bears the date, Berlin, March 13, 1833.

The first performance from manuscript and under the direction of the composer was at the sixth concert of the Philharmonic Society that season, May 13, 1833. “The concerts of the Society were this year, and onward, given in the Hanover Square Rooms, which had just been remodeled. The symphony made a great impression, and Felix electrified the audience by his wonderful performance of Mozart’s Concerto in D minor, his cadenzas being marvels in design and execution. His new overture in C was produced at the last concert of the season.”

Mendelssohn began to revise the symphony in June, 1834. On February 16, 1835, he wrote to Klingemann that he was biting his nails over the first movement and could not yet master it, but that in any event it should be something different—perhaps wholly new—and he had this doubt about every one of the movements. Towards the end of 1837 the revision was completed. Whether the symphony in its new form was played at a Philharmonic Society Concert in London, June 18, 1838, conducted by Moscheles, is doubtful, although Moscheles asked him for it. The first performance of the revised version on the European continent was at a Gewandhaus concert, Leipsic, November 1, 1849, when Julius Rietz conducted. The score and orchestral parts were not published until March, 1851.

Grove remarked of this work: “The music itself is better than any commentary. Let that be marked, learned, and inwardly digested.”

Reismann found the first movement, allegro vivace, A major, 6-8, to be a paraphrase of the so-called “Hunting Song” in the first group of Songs without Words. The tonality is the same, and this is often enough to fire the imagination of a commentator. The chief subject begins with the violins in the second measure and is developed at length. The second subject, E major, is for clarinets. The development section begins with a new figure treated in imitation by the strings. The chief theme is then used, with the second introduced contrapuntally. In the recapitulation section the second theme is given to the strings.

The second movement, andante con moto, D minor, 4-4, sometimes called the “Pilgrims’ March,” but without any authority, is said “to have been a processional hymn, which probably gave the name of ‘“Italian” symphony’ to the whole (!).” Lampadius remarks in connection with this: “I cannot discover that the piece bears any mark of a decided Catholic character, for, if I recollect rightly, I once heard Moscheles say that Mendelssohn had in his mind as the source of this second movement an old Bohemian folk song.”[38] The two introductory measures suggested to Grove “the cry of a muezzin from his minaret,” but, pray, what has this to do with Italy? The chief theme is given out by oboe, clarinet, and violas. The violins take it up with counterpoint for the flutes. There is a new musical idea for the clarinets. The first theme returns. The two introductory measures are used with this material in the remainder of the movement.

The third movement is marked simply “con moto moderato” (A major, 3-4). “There is a tradition (said to originate with Mendelssohn’s brother-in-law, Hensel, but still of uncertain authority) that it was transferred to its present place from some earlier composition. It is not, however, to be found in either of the twelve unpublished juvenile symphonies; and in the first rough draft of this symphony there is no sign of its having been interpolated. In style the movement is, no doubt, earlier than the rest of the work.” The movement opens with a theme for first violins; the trio with a passage for bassoons and horns. The third part is a repetition of the first. In the coda there is at the end a suggestion of the trio.

The finale is a saltarello, presto, 4-4. There are three themes. The flutes, after six introductory measures, play the first. In the second, somewhat similar in character, the first and second violins answer each other. The third is also given to the first and second violins alternately, but now in the form of a continuously moving, not a jumping figure.