DESCRIPTION:
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

String Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20 (1825)

I. Allegro moderato, ma con fuoco

Performed by the Kodály and Auer Quartets (2003-2004).

"The Octet in E flat major, in which Mendelssohn himself on occasion took the second viola part, was written in 1825 and immediately precedes in order of composition the concert overture A Midsummer Night's Dream, with which the Scherzo has obvious affinities. It was conceived in orchestral terms and is an astonishing feat of virtuosity from a sixteen-year-old, innovative in instrumentation and in its treatment of the instruments. Considerable demands are made of the first violin, in a part written originally for Rietz, for whom the work was intended as a birthday present. Much use is made of the ascending figuration of the first subject, which is fully exploited, while a secondary theme makes its appearance, at first in sixths between the fourth violin and first viola. The repeated exposition is duly followed by a central development, a chance for changes of texture, dynamic variation and changes of mood. The music mounts to a climax of largely unanimous activity before the first theme returns in recapitulation. The C minor slow movement has been variously analysed. It is opened by violas and cellos, answered by the violins, as the principal melodic material unwinds, in what might seem the first subject of a modified sonata-form movement. Its ethereal beauty is followed by the G minor Scherzo, seemingly, according to the composer's sister Fanny, inspired by lines from Goethe's Faust, the Walpurgis Night Dream, 'Clouds and mist pass / it grows bright above. / Air in the bushes and wind in the reeds / - and all is dispersed' (Wolkenzug und Nebelflor / erhellen sich von oben. / Luft in Laub und Wind im Rohr / - und alles ist zerstoben). The busy figuration is continued in the final fugal Presto, its principal subject mounting through the instruments, from the initial entry of the second cello. The perpetual motion of the movement nevertheless allows the addition of other thematic elements and explicit references to the preceding Scherzo." - Keith Anderson

Photograph: Loie Fuller Dancing (1900), Samuel Joshua Beckett