Mendelssohn vs. Schoenberg

[Bulldog]

Also I am sad to say I believe that Schoenberg was a bigger influence than Mendelssohn on composers that followed.  However there is no doubt in my mind that Mendelssohn is by far the greatest composer.  I find it shocking that he has less votes in this thread. 

Not shocked, but I am a little surprised at the spread.  Whether warranted or not, Mendelssohn does have a reputation for surface appeal.

[Saul]

This is something I wrote tonight after reading some of the comments here regarding this thread. Parts of it are in my own words, and some are things I've heard and read throughout the years about Mendelssohn.


Felix Mendelssohn and Arnold Schoenberg

Jacob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (February 3, 1809 - November 4, 1847) was probably the greatest child prodigy composer that music has ever seen, even compared to Mozart (an estimation made by famed author Goethe, friend of Mendelssohn's teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter).

Though acclaimed across Europe in his lifetime, Mendelssohn was disdained by future generations of musicians and critics for whom this Classicist, dedicated to perfection of form but little interested in advancing harmony, was far too conservative and comfortable. Yet there is considerable imagination in his best works (his Violin Concerto in E minor transformed the genre and was much-copied), and nearly everything he wrote is immediately distinctive, "Mendelssohnian" in its graceful textures, moto perpetuo adrenaline, and lack of superfluity.

After  viewing some comments made by a number of musicians here I can't but be perplexed and somewhat astonished at the conclusions these people have come to regarding Mendelssohn and Schoenberg.

Felix Mendelssohn the Crown King of European music in the Romantic Era, considered by many prominent music critics and musicians as the rightful heir of L.V Beethoven, is been compared to Arnold Schoenberg , a relatively recent composer who influenced the modern approach to composing music and the progenitor of the 12 tone system.

Many classical music lovers will tell you that Mendelssohn was a superior composer  by far then Schoenberg, and on the other side of the debate many will also differ and say that Schoenberg was greater.

But who's right?

I believe that the in the heart of this particular debate, there is yet a deeper debate going on within the classical music world, and this Mendelssohn & Schoenberg debate, is only the outer layer of a deeper important argument.

I believe this argument has to do with influence and progression in modernizing music.

Since Mendelssohn was a traditionalist and was completely dedicated to the style of the past greats, such as Bach, Handel, and Mozart, and to some degree Beethoven, whatever contributions he had given to the world of classical music is marginalized, because he wasn't a revolutionary composer.

Mendelssohn had given many contributions to composition, for example he is credited to be the father of the 'Tone Poem' with his amazing ability to take things like places, pictures, paintings, locations, nature, oceans and elements of the fantasy world , imaginary things like elves, fairies and animals and to translate them into music had no match in those days in Europe. No one did it better then him, and he wasn't shy of creating program music. 

He also contributed to development of Scherzo, composing music that is fast, light, and virtuosic for solo piano, chamber pieces, and Orchestral work. Composers like Brahms, Mahler and Borodin were influenced by his unique approach to scherzo and his orchestral style of composing.

Richard Wagner modeled his own career after Mendelssohn's, even though he devoted his long life to denigrating Mendelssohn and his music in published articles.

Mendelssohn's subjective high standards for himself contributed to one third of his music not being published (270 of his 750 works). He revised his work relentlessly, unwilling to publish anything he did not personally deem ready.

Mendelssohn was the first composer with a strong focus on the music of the past. He revered Bach, studied Handel and programmed orchestral concerts less around his contemporaries than Beethoven and Mozart. The legacy he left classical music is one of conservatism. The field has adhered to it ever since.

Mendelssohn helped shape the experience of classical music as we know it today.
He certainly didn't lack for praise during his lifetime. He was born in 1809 in Hamburg to an affluent family of Berlin-based bankers who staged private readings of their talented child's operas and symphonies, and he was publicly lionized, especially in England and Germany.

Popular or no, Mendelssohn certainly set a few enduring precedents. As conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra for 12 years, he practically codified the modern classical concert. He was an early adopter of the modern conductor's baton. He focused programs so that they included a few big pieces -- an overture, a concerto, a symphony -- performed sequentially: The movements of a symphony were played together rather than interspersed with arias and chamber pieces. He reintroduced major works by dead composers, a practice that had theretofore scarcely figured in musical life. He founded the Leipzig Conservatory. Mozart, were he to return today, might not recognize many aspects of classical music as it is now practiced, but Mendelssohn could find elements of continuity.

If you take all of this monumental contributions, besides the fact that he composed hundreds of works in all genres of classical music, Be it Piano, Chamber, Orchestral, Choral, and Opera, and enriched the Classical music world greatly, and besides the many legendary gifts that he possessed, such as:

1. Photographic memory, Mendelssohn memorized by heart every single music that was ever composed since Bach.

2. His status as a highly virtuosic pianist was unchallenged by anyone, and Clara Wiek Schumann adored Mendelssohn the pianist as much as she adored Mendelssohn the composer.

3. He was a first rate Organist, studying the Organ in a relatively short period of time, and becoming the best organist in all of Europe.

4. His ability to improvise and read new music instantly was astonishing.

5. His other intellectual gifts were evident as he was a fine Painter, writer and spoke and corresponded in writing fluently, in German, English, French and Latin.

To take this Giant of Music, one of a billion and to put him at a lower level then Schoenberg is not only intellectually and historically poor, but its a great injustice.

For Mendelssohn wasn't a revolutionary not because he couldn't be one, but because he didn't want to. This is a huge difference.

Schoenberg could have never composed at the level of Mendelssohn, he just didn't have the talent to do so, this is why he had to revolutionize composition in order to find a unique voice for himself.

Mendelssohn could have composed as the previous Greats such as Bach and Handel, he did compose a number of works that demonstrate to us his amazing ability to emulate the greats but not copy them, a great difference, and keeping his own special and distinctive Mendelssohnian style.

Mendelssohn didn't have to revolutionize music in order to find his voice, he was Great enough to compose Great music with a special and extremely distinctive style and voice that was his own, without breaking any laws of music, and without separating himself from the legacy of the Greats.

A great magician is not someone that tells you to shut your eyes while he creates the trick. A great Magician is someone who creates the magic while your eyes are open, but you still can't come to know how he pulled the trick.

Anyone can be 'different', it takes a real genius to be different even though staying the same, just like everyone else.

I therefore conclude that this comparison is not worthy. There is no comparison between the two. Mendelssohn was clearly without any shadow of  any doubt the superior composer, by every standard conceivable my the human mind.

Cheers,

Saul

[greg]

Oh I hear the 'pretty perfection' of it ... but that kind of music doesnt do a thing for me, it actually makes me a bit ill to be honest.

weird... I actually agree with you on this one. It was actually painful to listen to after about 10 seconds. Of course, it doesn't mean it's bad, but wow...

[Josquin des Prez]

Felix Mendelssohn the Crown King of European music in the Romantic Era, considered by many prominent music critics and musicians as the rightful heir of L.V Beethoven

Saul, quit making stuff up would ya.

[Josquin des Prez]

weird... I actually agree with you on this one. It was actually painful to listen to after about 10 seconds. Of course, it doesn't mean it's bad, but wow...

I guess it takes a more experienced listener to understand Mozart. Then again, you appear to have problems with Beethoven as well, which is actually much more n00b friendly.

[Saul]

Saul, quit making stuff up would ya.

Read Professor Larry Todd's bio of Mendelssohn and see if he didnt say that many considered Mendelssohn to be the rightful heir of L.V Beethoven.

[knight66]

Lots of people thought that the earth was flat.

Mike

[Teresa]

Lots of people thought that the earth was flat.

Mike

Some still do The Flat Earth Society

[knight66]

Quite so Teresa.

Mike

[Mirror Image]

Read Professor Larry Todd's bio of Mendelssohn and see if he didnt say that many considered Mendelssohn to be the rightful heir of L.V Beethoven.

Perhaps many people did consider Mendelssohn "the rightful heir to Beethoven," but this is 2010, so obviously the consensus of this train of thought is not applicable anymore.

[knight66]

Yes, that is pretty much what I was indicating. We have our Mendelssohn cousin to the Flat Earth Society.

Mike

[Elgarian]

Composers are not things to be compared, judging one above the other.  Each composer, just as each person, is absolutely unique, sui generis, and each composer has his unique mission in life, as we all do, and Mendelssohn's mission was not anything the same as Schoenberg's mission, and Mendelssohn was an absolutely great Mendelssohn, as was Schoneberg a great Schoenberg. 

You may prefer Schoenberg over Mendelssohn but that has nothing to do with each's purpose or mission and how well they fulfilled it.  In any event, no one but Mendelssohn could fulfill his mission better than him, or in place of him, and he was not put here to fulfill any other composer's mission.  Our world would be infinitely poorer had Mendelssohn not existed, since his contribution to our world would have been missing and irreplaceable by any other composer.

Someone remarked fairly wittily, "be yourself, everyone else is taken" - a joke, sure, but one that contains a lot of wisdom.

Haven't anything to contribute to the thread as such, but just want to say that when I read posts by Franco like this one, I quite often want to cheer.

[karlhenning]

Saul, quit making stuff up would ya.

By a wide margin, my favorite of all your posts on the forum.

[karlhenning]

Perhaps many people did consider Mendelssohn "the rightful heir to Beethoven" . . . .

Although to consider his many contemporaries "wrongful heirs" (or worse, "pretenders"?) were utter tripe.

[karlhenning]

. . . i geniunely just dont like it all & it makes me kinda sick.

Can't be the only thing making you sick.  Anyway, that is hardly any matter of a "problem" with the music, but with the listener.

[karlhenning]

Composers are not things to be compared, judging one above the other.  Each composer, just as each person, is absolutely unique, sui generis, and each composer has his unique mission in life, as we all do, and Mendelssohn's mission was not anything the same as Schoenberg's mission, and Mendelssohn was an absolutely great Mendelssohn, as was Schoneberg a great Schoenberg. 

You may prefer Schoenberg over Mendelssohn but that has nothing to do with each's purpose or mission and how well they fulfilled it.  In any event, no one but Mendelssohn could fulfill his mission better than him, or in place of him, and he was not put here to fulfill any other composer's mission.  Our world would be infinitely poorer had Mendelssohn not existed, since his contribution to our world would have been missing and irreplaceable by any other composer.

Someone remarked fairly wittily, "be yourself, everyone else is taken" - a joke, sure, but one that contains a lot of wisdom.

Haven't anything to contribute to the thread as such, but just want to say that when I read posts by Franco like this one, I quite often want to cheer.

Hear, hear.

That said . . . FWIW, I like both composers, but I like more of Schoenberg's work, and I rate him rather higher as an artist.

Franco's point entirely well taken, that each artist must be taken on his own terms. (It's no good 'dismissing' Mendelssohn for not being Schoenberg, or vice versa.)  As to whether composers aren't to be compared, I'm unsure that I should disallow the idea, even in light of Franco's point;  people have done it forever — what may be the truth (or a truth) beyond the reach of the objection?

Our "Josquin" called Mendelssohn's art sterile, and seems not to have accepted my invitation to explain that to those of us who find such an adjective only incompetently applied to the noun art.  It's a pathetic fallacy, of course . . . but in all events impossible to apply to a composer's work.  Coincidentally, I am reading The Gesualdo Hex, and the author mentions more than once some musicologist or other mourning Gesualdo's as "a stillborn art."  Now, that "evaluation" is nonsense, most obviously in view of the artistic stimulation which 20^th-c. composers found in Gesualdo's music.  There's no point at which any of us could call Mendelssohn's art "sterile," for that "evaluation" will evaporate whenever an artist arises who takes that work as one seed of inspiration.  And these seeds remain quick through long ages, as the example of Gesualdo attests.

All in all, though, and while I frequently pound the table for half a dozen underappreciated composers who have been (in my view) unfairly marginalized (and my objection may be a matter of degree more than any question of an "artistic democracy" in which all composers are created "equal") I don't believe we can rank Mendelssohn even among the foremost of 19^th-c. composers, let alone (as some here seek to claim) the superior to Schoenberg.

The story I have repeated before tells of an impatient sophomore in a Music History class who complains to the teacher that they are spending too much time on Mendelssohn.  The student believes he has pinned the professor with the rhetorical question, "Isn't he a Grade B composer?"

After a second's fermata, the professor earnestly replies, "Yes — but I'm not sure you understand how good that is."

[Teresa]

One example of why I choose Mendelssohn:

http://www.youtube.com/v/yOZGl5UmkvQ

The melody, the harmony, the tension, the drama, the orchestral colors, this music is alive!  And why I love the Romantic composers the best. 

[karlhenning]

This is a sentimental favorite of mine.  It was one of the assignments in my conducting class at Wooster, for one thing;  and we played it with the (as it was then known) Charlottesville University & Community Symphony Orchestra:

http://www.youtube.com/v/rGWai0SEpUQ

[karlhenning]

. . .  and we played it with the (as it was then known) Charlottesville University & Community Symphony Orchestra

(That would have been while I was at UVa, of course.)

[Josquin des Prez]

Perhaps i need to correct myself then. Mendelssohn's art is not sterile in itself. He was indeed a consummate crafter and his music is far more complex then a lot give him credit for. I just find some facets of his expression to be artificial. His melodies can sometimes be extremely beautiful, but beyond that his music simply sounds flat to me, like he had no real personal involvement in the type of feeling he wanted to express in the first place. There are exceptions of course, but they are just that, exceptions. I realize that this is a subjective opinion, but at the same time i think i'm in a better position to those who claim disdain for the music of Mozart.