Mendelssohn, the Organ, and the Music of the Past

Constructing Historical Legacies
Erscheinungsjahr 2014
ISBN: 978-1-58046-474-1
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 118, 350 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 640 g

Reihe: Eastman Studies in Music

Examines Mendelssohn's relationship to the past, shedding light on the construction of historical legacies that, in some cases, served to assert German cultural supremacy only two decades after the composer's death.

By upbringing, family connections, and education, Felix Mendelssohn was ideally positioned to contribute to the historical legacies of the German people, who in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars discovered that they were a nation with a distinct culture. The number of cultural icons of German nationalism that Mendelssohn "discovered," promoted, or was asked to promote (by way of commissions) in his compositions is striking: Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press, Dürer and Nuremberg, Luther and the Augsburg Confession as the manifesto of Protestantism, Bach and the St. Matthew Passion, Beethoven and his claims to universal brotherhood.
The essays in thisvolume investigate from a variety of perspectives Mendelssohn's relationship to the music of the past, including the significance of Bach's music for the Mendelssohn family, the homages to Bach in Mendelssohn's organ compositions,the influence of Beethoven in the Reformation Symphony, and Mendelssohn's reception and use of Handel's oratorios. Together, the essays shed light on the construction of legacies that, in some cases, served to assert German cultural supremacy only two decades after the composer's death in 1847.

Contributors: Celia Applegate, John Michael Cooper, Hans Davidsson, Wm. A. Little, Peter Mercer-Taylor, Siegwart Reichwald, Glenn Stanley, Russell Stinson, Benedict Taylor, Nicholas Thistlethwaite, Jürgen Thym, R. Larry Todd, Christoph Wolff

Jürgen Thym is professor emeritus of musicology at the Eastman School of Music and editor of Of Poetry and Song: Approaches tothe Nineteenth-Century Lied (University of Rochester Press, 2010).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Thym, Jürgen

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Musikwissenschaft: Rezeption, Einflüsse und Beziehungen
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikgattungen Geistliche Musik, Religiöse Musik
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Geschichte der Musik Geschichte der Musik: Romantik (ca. 1830-1900)
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Einzelne Komponisten und Musiker

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Of Statues and Monuments
Mendelssohn and the Contrapuntal Tradition
Mendelssohn and the Catholic Tradition: Roman Influences on His Kirchen-Musik, Op. 23 and Drei Motetten, Op. 39
Mendelssohn and the Legacy of Beethoven's Ninth: Vocality in the "Reformation" Symphony
Mendelssohn and the Organ
Some Observations on Mendelssohn's Bach Recital
"He Ought to Have a Statue": Mendelssohn, Gauntlett, and the English Organ Reform
Mendelssohn's Sonatas, Op. 65, and the Craighead-Saunders Organ at the Eastman School of Music: Aspects of Performance Practice and Context
The Bach Tradition among the Mendelssohn Ancestry
Music History as Sermon: Style, Form, and Narrative in Mendelssohn's "Dürer" Cantata (1828)
Mendelssohn's "Authentic" Handel in Context: German Approaches to Translation and Art and Architectural Restoration in the Early Nineteenth Century
Beyond the Ethical and Aesthetic: On Reconciling Religious Art with Secular Art-Religion in Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang"
Mendelssohn's Religious Worlds: Currents and Crosscurrents of Protestantism in Nineteenth-Century Germany and Great Britain
List of Contributors
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Contributors: Celia Applegate, John Michael Cooper, Hans Davidsson, Wm. A. Little, Peter Mercer-Taylor, Siegwart Reichwald, Glenn Stanley, Russell Stinson, Benedict Taylor, Nicholas Thistlewaite, Jürgen Thym, R. Larry Todd, Christoph Wolff
Jürgen Thym is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music and editor of Of Poetry and Song: Approaches to the Nineteenth-Century Lied (University of Rochester Press, 2010).