Composer: Felix Mendelssohn
Orchestra: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Edward Gardner
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Chandos
Release: 2014
Size: 1.3 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Mendelssohn: Ruy Blas Overture, Op. 95
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 11
02. I. Allegro di molto
03. II. Andante
04. III. Menuetto. Allegro molto – Trio
05. IV. Allegro con fuoco – Più stretto
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 ‘Scottish’
06. I. Introduction. Andante con moto – Allegro un poco agitato – Assai animato – Andante come prima
07. II. Scherzo. Vivace non troppo
08. III. Adagio cantabile
09. IV. Finale guerriero. Allegro vivacissimo – Allegro maestoso assai
Recorded: 25-26 October 2013
Recording Venue: Town Hall, Birmingham, United Kingdom
Edward Gardner and the CBSO present volume 2 in their series Mendelssohn in Birmingham, this time performing Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 and the Overture Ruy Blas. The impressive first volume was roundly praised, IRR commending the ‘powerfully engaging and alert performances’ while the Sunday Times made it their ‘Album of the Week’.
Among the fruits of his prodigiously gifted youth were thirteen string symphonies, which Mendelssohn composed privately as ‘practice’ pieces. At age fifteen he returned to the last of these, expanded the orchestration and published it as the first of his mature numbered symphonies. As heard here, this energetic work, bursting with youthful high spirits, shows the influence of Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber, but that influence is always absorbed in a personal way.
Although numbered as the third of five, the ‘Scottish’ Symphony was actually the last which Mendelssohn composed. Inspiration for it had come while Mendelssohn was visiting Edinburgh in 1829. He was immediately moved to compose the brooding melody that begins and ends the work, but not until 1842 did he actually finish this masterpiece.
No such time span was needed to complete the Overture to Victor Hugo’s tragedy Ruy Blas, which was commissioned only three days before the production’s opening night.
Mendelssohn loathed Hugo’s drama and though the opening is suitably sombre, the rest of the overture disregards the play’s form and character, concluding in celebration where Hugo’s story culminates in murder and suicide.