Mozart & the Mendelssohns

Felix Mendelssohn composed his Reformation Symphony as a way to honour the 300 years since the reformation from Catholicism to Protestantism, and the cultural and spiritual heritage of Lutheran Germany. It evokes an air of nobility, and an atmosphere of affirmation and hope. Two years later, Felix’s sister Fanny would write her vibrant and highly-coloured Overture in C, her only orchestral work without voices.

Longtime MSO collaborator Christian Li joins for Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.5. A work requiring spontaneity and flexibility, the composer’s usual grace is interrupted by an unruly middle episode, written “Turkish” in style, as was fashionable at the time.

As it so often does, everything comes back to Bach. He stands quietly behind every work on this program: as a model for Mozart, as inspiration for Fanny Mendelssohn, and a guiding artistic presence for Felix Mendelssohn. Bach’s Fourth Orchestral Suite radiates festivity, with brilliant trumpets and timpani, uniting refinement with enthusiasm.

But the magic is, whether you know the history or not, where these works are concerned the feeling is the same. Musical ignorance can too be bliss!