Exploring many aspects of Felix Mendelssohn's multi-faceted career as musician and how it intersects with his work as composer, contributors discuss practical issues of music making such as performance space, instruments, tempo markings, dynamics, phrasings, articulations, fingerings, and instrument techniques. They present the conceptual and ideological underpinnings of Mendelssohn's approach to performance, interpretation, and composing through the contextualization of specific performance events and through the theoretic actualization of performances of specific works. Contributors rely on manuscripts, marked or edited scores, and performance parts to convey a deeper understanding of musical expression in 19th-century Germany. This study of Mendelssohn's work as conductor, pianist, organist, violist, accompanist, music director, and editor of old and new music offers valuable perspectives on 19th-century performance practice issues.

Sheds new light on Mendelssohn as composer, conductor, and performer

About the Author

Siegwart Reichwald is Associate Professor of Music History at Converse College and conducts the Converse Symphony Orchestra. He is author of The Musical Genesis of Felix Mendelssohn's Paulus. He lives in Spartansburg, South Carolina.

Reviews

This book does a superb job of explaining the 19th-century sound environment of Felix Mendelssohn and his audiences. . . . Essential.July 2009

* Choice *

Mendelssohn in Performance . . . should be on the shelf of every performer, scholar and devotee of Mendelssohn's music. July 2010, Vol. 7.1

* Nineteenth Century Music Review *

[T]his book has something for everyone interested in Felix Mendelssohn: history, culture, reception, orchestras and instruments, editions and texts, Mendelssohn's sense of historicism, his performances of other composers, performances of his music in his time and later, and even modern films that use his music.14.1 2009

* Performance Practice Review *

[Reichwald] has produced an exceptionally valuable, eminently useful, and very readable book. Any performer wishing to execute an historically informed performance of Mendelssohn's music-or of any other early-nineteenth-century Austro-German composer for that matter-would be well advised to study it thoroughly.29.1 2010

* Journal of Musicological Research *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253351999
Author Siegwart Reichwald
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press