Born on February 3, 1809, in Hamburg, Germany; died on November 4, 1847, in Leipzig, Germany
Symphony No.5 ("Reformation")
Andante - Allegro con fuoco
Allegro vivace
Andante
Chorale: Andante con moto - Allegro vivace
Composed: 1829-30; rev. 1832
Estimated length: 33 minutes
First performance: November 15, 1832, with the composer conducting the Berlin Hofkapelle.
First Nashville Symphony performance: April 9, 1981, with Max Rudolf conducting at Andrew Jackson Hall, TPAC.
In 1816, when Felix Mendelssohn was a boy of seven, his parents – both of whom came from prominent Jewish families – had their children baptized into the Lutheran faith. Felix, whose grandfather Moses Mendelssohn had been a beacon of the Jewish Enlightenment, wrote several major works affirming the Protestant faith in which he was raised. Yet his sense of religious identification proved “more complex than might be explained by Jewish-Protestant ambivalence,” according to the Mendelssohn authority R. Larry Todd.
Mendelssohn earned great acclaim for his sacred oratorios St. Paul and Elijah, but these works were preceded by a musical testament to faith that relied on the orchestra alone, without voices. In 1829, when he was only 20, the precious composer undertook the project of writing a symphony to pay tribute to the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, a milestone in the Protestant Reformation spearheaded by Martin Luther. It was also in that year that Mendelssohn famously rekindled widespread interest in the legacy of the devotedly Lutheran composer J.S. Bach by presenting a powerful revival of his St. Matthew Passion.
Intending to have the new work in place in time for the actual anniversary celebrations being held in Berlin June 1830, Mendelssohn became ill with measles. Progress on the “Reformation” Symphony – a name later bestowed by the composer’s sister Fanny – was delayed, and the public had to wait more than two years before it could be premiered.
Mendelssohn was confronted by critical objections to the score’s programmatic elements – to the prospect of attempting to convey an external narrative through tones alone, without a text. For a variety of reasons, he decided to reject the “Reformation” Symphony and even called for the score to be burned. Because it was the last of his full-scale symphonies to be published (appearing posthumously in print in 1868), the “Reformation” thus became known as No. 5 but was in fact the second to be composed.
Before the delayed premiere in 1832, Mendelssohn revised the score to reshape it according to the conventional four-movement template for a symphony. Many of the changes involved cuts –including of a brief “extra” movement that bridges the way to the finale. For these performances, Maestro Anthony Parnther has opted to present this rarely heard original version, which was not published until 2009 (the year of the Mendelssohn bicentennial).
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR
Despite his later doubts of the concept of programmatic music, Mendelssohn sets up the terms for the compelling story of a struggle of faith in the first movement. Counterpoint in the slow introduction alludes to Catholic sacred music and its association with “antique style” but gives way to a visionary statement of a radiantly ascending motto known as the “Dresden Amen” (a musica icon that RichardWagner would later borrow for his final opera, Parsifal).
The stage is thus set to depict the historical confrontation that led to the emergence of Protestantism. Echoes of epic battles permeate the fanfare-like themes and instrumentation of the fierce Allegro, though Mendelssohn leaves us with an impression of unresolved struggle at the end.
The cheerful rhythmic propulsion of the Scherzo mirrors the festivity of a Catholic Corpus Christi procession that Mendelssohn witnessed in Munich, with “colorfully painted flags fluttering to and fro,” as he described it. The third movement, in G minor, is scored mostly for the strings and evokes an aria of Baroque pathos.
A recitative-like flute solo provides the link, later cut by the composer, to the finale. In the manner of the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, in which an introductory passage paves the way toward the Ode to Joy theme, the flute seems to go in search of a new path.
The answer is found in the signature Lutheran chorale, “Ein’ feste Burg” (“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” written by Luther himself), which informs the final movement. Mendelssohn contrasts the chorale with other ideas, intensifying the sense of activity through Bach-like counterpoint. This serves as a musical metaphor for the confrontation of faiths but finds a reassuring resolution in the orchestra’s unified declaration of fortress-like faith in the final moments.
Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings
− Thomas May is the Nashville Symphony's program annotator.
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