Mendelssohn in Performance

5. Mendelssohn and the Orchestra

In discussion of musical life in England, Mendelssohn commented to Moscheles: Our inner life it is all that is worth living; but then that is a very different thing to our outer doings,—something much better. Conducting and getting up public performances is all very well . . . but the result, even for the public, does not go far.A little better, a little worse, what does it matter? How soon it is forgotten !1 This famous passage underlines the chief difficulty in any study of performance . Music is an ephemeral act. In the absence of preserved sounds from Mendelssohn’s lifetime, one is compelled to undertake a process of archaeological synthesis, drawing together various indirect forms of evidence, all of which are filtered through biased contemporary commentary. Moreover, the performing practice of an orchestra is not the result of the actions of any one performer. One can speak of a “Nikitsch orchestra” or a “Mendelssohn orchestra,” but the extent to which conductors can in- fluence sound is a contentious matter. Mendelssohn frequently encountered ensembles that were unable to comply with his wishes. Commenting upon the standard of ensemble he was compelled to work with in Düsseldorf , he remarked to Hiller in 1833:“I assure you that at the beat, they all come in separately, not one with any decision, and in the pianos the flute is always too high, and not a single Düsseldorfer can play a triplet clearly, but all play a quaver and two semiquavers instead, and every Allegro leaves off twice as fast as it began, and the oboe plays E natural in C minor.”2 Knowing what constituted Mendelssohn’s aesthetic ideals is also somewhat 5 Mendelssohn and the Orchestra david milsom elusive. UnlikeWagner and Berlioz, Mendelssohn did not write extensively on the subject of performing practice, and Wehner points out the incomplete state of the evidence: “[M]any contemporary performing materials probably are lost. Owing to their intended purpose, they continued to be reused until they were worn out. . . . This is unfortunate since they might have provided information about many details of the musical text as well as phrasings, dynamics, and other indications that Mendelssohn gave during rehearsals but failed to enter into his score.”3 Mendelssohn’s reputation in the hands of both critics and admirers affects the matter of his relationship with the orchestra as much as his other areas of activity.This problem is inherent in the reception history of all composers of course, but in Mendelssohn’s case the problems are more noticeable. Unlike Spohr, whose reputation gradually ebbed away with changing performance tastes, only to be revived in more recent times (in many respects because of his importance in terms of performing practice), Mendelssohn commentary has veered from the views of unctuous admirers toWagner’s acrimonious criticism . Dispassionate evidence in the sphere of Mendelssohn’s practical activities as a musician is as hard a matter to grasp as it is with respect to his compositions. Mendelssohn’s supporters attracted attention to his versatility—Lampadius describing him as being “as great a conductor as he was as virtuoso and composer,” with the “electric fire of Mendelssohn’s nature.”4 Such unbridled enthusiasm characterizes older documents and is rarely found in modern writings. By contrast,Wagner’s denunciations have fed into generations of scholarship. The conventional view of Mendelssohn as a “polite man writing polite music”5 is echoed in even quite recent studies. Whittall, in 1987, thus remarked that “[i]t could be that too much was expected of the prodigy . . . and that, for fear of failure, Mendelssohn dissipated—or dammed—his energies; alternatively, he never matured emotionally to a sufficient extent to sustain, still less to consolidate, his adolescent genius.”6 Such a view can be seen as a direct result of Wagner’s remarks. It is perhaps rather more surprising than Stratton’s 1901 evaluation: “As a conductor Mendelssohn was among the first of his time. He brought discipline into the role . . . yet, judged by modern standards, his conducting would leave something to be desired. It was like himself, bright and sunny; but not penetrating deeply below the surface.”7 This comment is interesting. It is couched in deterministic language, asserting an automatic assumption of procedural superiority by modern performers. It also alludes to the nature of Wagner’s criticism, which is summed up in his famous tirade against Mendelssohn’s supposed attitude to tempo in a Dresden performance of Beethoven’s F Major Symphony: 86...