Mendelssohn 5

– Mendelssohn began writing the symphony with an idea that it would play a role for the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession (Martin Luther/Reformation), which would take place in 1830.

– His symphony wasn’t completed in time – and he was never actually commissioned to write the work. So, instead of any official connection with these events, they turned out to be more of an inspiration to the music.

– The fourth movement contains the hymn “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” which was composed in the late 1520s by Martin Luther. In addition, Mendelssohn’s original version paid a tribute to Luther with a recitative before the fourth movement that features the flute. (Martin Luther played this instrument.)

– After an initial first performance in late 1832, Mendelssohn made extensive revisions. The reasons aren’t completely clear, and may have something to do with negative feedback from notable critics. These included taking out a few measures in various places, as well as eliminating the entire recitative section. The first publication of the score and parts didn’t take place until the 1860s and was based on the revisions.

– The Barenreiter edition (ours) was published in 2009 and was meant to allow orchestras the ability to play either edition. Some of the scholarship surrounding this piece questions the original criticism Mendelssohn faced. The idea is that if its original purpose was to include the recitative (and the other sections), why should we only play the revised version? Today, a case can be made for performing either version, and you will hear both of them in the concert hall and in recordings.

Our April performance will include the original version – the one with the recitative before the fourth movement.

We will play what is known as “Fassung/Version 1.” If you look in your music, you’ll see a note at the bottom of the first page that references this. It means that any bracketed portion with * (and then typically with letters attached to measure numbers) is version 1. We will play all of these sections. 

For example, the first of these happens in the first movement at m137. We will play 137, then 137a, 137b, etc through 137h, followed by 138. While it seems complicated to explain, if you just play all of the measures present in your edition, you’ll be fine. 

There is one instance where you will have to skip measures and that is in movement 1 from m192-211. This block of music has “version 2. Because we are playing version 1, we’ll skip to where it says “Versions 1 and 2” at m212. With the exception of these measures, please be prepared to play every measure in your music. 

Movement 2 is “Allegro vivace,” and we will take all repeats. 

Movement 3 is “Andante.” 

We will play the recit in-between movements 3 and 4. (This is the main reason for playing version 1!) 

Movement 4 is “Choral: Ein feste Burg: Andante con moto”, and quickly followed by Allegro Vivace

WATCH OUT! 

If you use music from imslp, you will not be able to play with us on Thursday. You can try, but there are enough additions from version 1 that will make this extremely challenging. We’ll just keep going and leave you behind – and then encourage you to use the LGSO-provided parts for the following weeks. 

TL/DR

Use the LGSO-provided edition of Mendelssohn 5 and play (almost) all of the measures. If you don’t, you’ll be lost the entire piece. 

Click here for a recording of the exact version that we will play.