On Tue 10 Nov 98 (17:45:03), [log in to unmask] wrote:
> As for calling the second movement "a delicious bit of romantic
> saccharine", I am speechless (or nearly so). Mendelssohn was a
> Classicist.
> Just listen to his music, read your music history, and analyze his
> scores.
> This is not to say that he should be played on Baroque organs with no
> swell boxes, just that he was incapable of writing "a delicious bit of
> romantic saccharine".
Dear David,
I seemed to have touched on the raw! Sorry 8-(
Don't you think Mendelssohn was a child of his time? Sure he was a lover
of the Classics, and re-introduced JS Bach to the musical public after
many years of neglect.
Wouldn't you agree that the Finale of the 6th Sonata is a bit of
Romantic saccharine? Or if /saccharine/ is a no-no word, then "a bit
of Romantic /honey/"?
> "In the 3rd movement Mendelssohn calls for the Vox Humana or Corno di
> Bassetto"? Indeed he does not! You or the editor of the edition you
> use call for them.
Here you are right. I use the Henry Hudson edition published by Joseph
Williams Ltd of London. The registration suggestions are his own. However
he does quote /in extenso/ Mendelssohn's own Preface to his Six Organ
Sonatas:
"Much depends, in these Sonatas, upon the proper selection of the Organ
Stops: however, as every instrument I am acquainted with has its own
peculiar mode of treatment in this respect, and as the same nominal
combination does not produce quite the same effect in different Organs,
I have only given a general indication of the kind of effect to be
produced, without adding a list of the particular Stops to be used.
"By /fortissimo,/ I intend the use of the Full Organ; by /pianissimo/ a
soft-toned eight-feet stop is generally intended; by /forte/, the Great
Organ, without some of the most powerful stops; by /piano/, some
soft-toned eight-feet stops combined, and so forth.
"In the Pedal, I prefer throughout, even in the softest passages, the
eight- and sixteen-feet stops united, except where the contrary is
expressly specified (see the Sixth Sonata). It is therefore left to
the judgment of the organist to combine the different stops appropriately
to the style of the various movements, advising him, however, to be
careful that in combining stops belonging to two keyboards, the kind of
tone in one should be readily distinguished from that in the other, but
without producing too violent a contrast between the two separate
qualities of organ-tone."
Mendelssohn himself played the Pedal part of the soft movement of the
5th Sonata (B minor) on an 8ft string stop, staccato: just like a
double-bass played pizzicato. A pleasant relief from the ubiquitous
16ft Bourdon.
Of course Mendelssohn is not a Romantic like Liszt; but his keyboard
style is a long way from that of JSB, except where he is deliberately
adopting a conservative style. IMHO that is. Would you call Hubert Parry
a Romantic? His Chorale Preludes are written in a conservative style,
possibly the best neo-Bach since Bach...
Just my 2c more.
Ben
--
Revd Ben Crick, BA CF
<[log in to unmask]>
232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK)
http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick.htm
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