- -Baaaa NAXOS MENDELSSOHN Cello Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2 Variations concertantes Maria Kliegel, Cello Kristin Merscher, Piano Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809 - 1847) Cello Sonata No. 1 in B Flat Major, Op. 45 Variations concertantes, Op. 17 Cello Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 58 Song without Words, Op. 109 Felix Mendelssohn, grandson of Moses Mendelssohn, the great Jewish thinker of the Enlightenment, was born in Hamburg in 1809, the son of a prosperous banker. His family was influential in cultural circles, and he and his sister were educated in an environment that encouraged both musical and general cultural insterests. At the same time the extensiie acquaintance of the Mendelssohns amono artists and men of letters brouaht" an unusual breadth of mind, a stimulus to ktural curiosity. Much of Mendelssohn's childhood was passed in Berlin, where his parents moved when he was three, to escape Napoleonic invasion. There he took lessons from Goethe's much admired Zelter, who introducedhim to the old poet in Weimar. The choice of a career in music was eventually decided on the advice of Cherubini, consulted by Abraham Mendelssohn in Paris, where he was director of the Conservatoire. There followed a period of further educa tion, a Grand Tour of Europe that took him to Italy and north to Scotland. His professional career began in earnest with his appointment as general director of music in Dusseldorf in 1833. Mendelssohn's subsequent career was intense and brief. He set tled in Leipzig as conductor of the Gewandhaus concerts, and was instrumental in establishing the Conservatory there. Briefly lured to Berlin by the King of Prussia and by the importunity of his family, he spent an unsatisfactory year or so as director of the music section of the Academy of Arts, providing music for a revival of classical drama under royal encouragement. The appointment he was glad to relinquish in 1844, later returningto his old position in Leipzig, where he died in 1847. As a composer Mendelssohn possessed a perfect technical command of the resources available to him and was alwavs able to write music that is felicitous. apt and often remarkably economicalein the way it achieves its effects: ~endelssohnhad, like the rest of his family, accepted Christian baptism, a ceremonv Heine once described as a ticket of admission into European culture. Never theless he encountered anti-Semitic prejudice, as others were to, and false ideas put about in his own life-time have left some trace in modern repetitionsof accusations of superficiality for which there is no real justification. The first of Mendelssohn's two sonatas for cello and piano was written in 1838 for the composer's brother Paul. The first movement opens with a statement of the first bars by both instruments, the first motif developed in a passage leading to the second subject and contributing largely to the central devel opment. The G minor slow movement develops gradually from its own opening figure, in music of increasing elaboration. The last movement starts with a cello statement of the principal theme, which frames episodes of contrasting rhythm and texture. The sonata ends with a gentle coda. Mendelssohn performed his second cello sonata, written in 1843, in London in 1845 with the cellist Piatti. The highly character istic D major first movement starts in a splendidly cheerful mood, moving forward to a less robust second subject. There is an exciting central development section, followed by a fuller recapitulationand histrionic coda. The B minor second movement is ascherzo, its lightness of mood stressed by the plucked notes of the cello. A brief slow movement in G major, with widespread arpeggiated piano chords offering a chorale on which the cello meditates in a passionate recitative. The sonata ends with a finale of rapid brilliance. Thevariationsconcertantes, Opus 17, were written in 1827forMendelssohn's fourteen-year-oldbrother Paul. The two instru ments share the theme. The first of the eight variations leaves the theme to the cello, to which the piano provides a varied accompaniment. The second and third variatins make use of com pound and contrasting rhythms respectively. The fourth verstion of the material, marked Allegro con fuoco, allows chief activity to the piano, while the plucked strings of the cello echo the opening figures of the fifth. In the following variation the cello adds a constantly moving serniquaver accompaniment to the piano and this is followed by a variation marked Presto ed agitato, much of the agitation entrusted to the piano. A sus tained note from the cello links and accompanies the final version of the theme, before the exciting variety of the coda and hushed conclusion. The notion of a song without words was an original one, yet it suited verywell the short character pieces for piano that men delssohn wrote. He wrote one such piece for cello and piano, a compliment to Lisa Christiani. this short work was probablywritten in 1845, the year of the last Songs without Words for piano, which it closely resembles in mood and form, an outer D major Andante framing a more excited D minor central section. Maria Kliegel Maria Kliegel achieved significant success in 1981, when she was awarded the Grand Prix in the Rostropovich Competition. Born in Dillenburg, Germany, she began learning the cello at the age of ten and first came to public attention five years later, when, as a student at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, she twice won first prize in the Jugend Musiziert competition. She later studied in America with Janos Starker, serving as his assistant, and subsequently appeared in a phenomenal series of concerts in America, Switzerland and France, with Rostropovich as conductor. She has since then enjoyed an international career of growing distinction as a soloist and recitalist, offering an amazingly wide repertoire, ranging from Bach and Vieuxtemps to the contemporary. Kristin Merscher Kristin Merscherwas born in Frankfurt am Main and as aseven-year-old had her first reaular ~ianoinstruction there at the Conse~ato~.One vear later she moved witk he; family to Hanover, studying at the ~anbver~ochschule fur Musik. From 1977 until 1980 she studied in Paris with an eminent teacher at the Conservatoire, with regular summer master-classes with Gyorgy Sebok in Switzerland and at Indiana University. She made her debut at the age of ten in a piano concerto by Haydn and her first solo recital at the age of fourteen, later embarking on a solo career which has taken her to the principal music centres of Europe, to the Far East and to Canada and the United States of America, as well as to the Middle East. Felix Mendelssohn Sonaten fiir Violoncello . Variations Concertantes . Lied ohne Worte "Mendelssohn ist der Mozart des 19. Jahrhunderts, der hellste Musiker, der die Widerspruche der Zeit am klarsten durchschaut und zuerst versohnt." Diese Worte schrieb Robert Schumann uber seinen ein Jahr alteren Kollegen, und seine Charakterisierung trifft in mancher Hinsicht den Nagel auf den Kopf. Allerdings mit gewissen, freilich auBeren Einschrankungen. Hinter Felix Mendelssohn stand kein vom Ehrgeiz angenagter Vater, derseine musikalischen Wunderkinder zu unverhaltnismaOigenLeistungen anhielt und ihre Gesundheit aufs Spiel setzte; vielmehr konnten sich die Neigungen und Fahigkeiten des talentierten Knaben in aller Ruhe entfalten, eingebettet in eine zwar patriarchalischgefuhrte, gleichwohlallesandereals tyrannische Bankiersfamilie. Materielle Note gab es nicht, obwohl Abraham Mendelssohn seine samtlichen Kinder zu fleiOiger Arbeit anhielt und sie damit auf ein selbstandiges Leben vorbereitete. Die geistigen lnteressen wurden auf vielfaltige Weise gefordert, und so ist es kein Wunder, daO der Gliickliche - denn genau das heiOt Felix - unter anderem mehrere Reisen durch Europa unternehmen und nach eigenem Gutdunken seine vielfaltigen Eindrucke verarbeiten konnte. Im Hause Mendelssohn war Felix nicht der einzige Musiker. Seine altere Schwester Fanny, die spatere Ehefrau des Malers Adolf Hensel, war Pianistin und, was noch schwerer in die Wagschale fiel, auch Kornponistin - und damit zugleich eine unmittelbar anregende Kraft hinter dem Schaffen ihres Bruders. Eine weitere Schwester, Rebecca, sang; und Felix' Bruder Paul spielte das Violoncello. Hauskonzerte waren an der Tagesordnung und in Berlin beinahe so etwas wie eine kulturelle Einrichtung. In diesem Umfeld gediehen die kompositorischen Anlagen des "neuen Mozart" wie von selbst. Seit seinem elften Lebensjahr schrieb er Musik, innerhalb kurzesterzeit hatte er bereitssoviel handwerklicheRoutine erworben, daO man die ersten Meisterstucke zu horen bekam - Kammermusik hauptsachlich, aber auch Vokalwerke und Symphonien fur Streichorchester, je ein Klavier- und ein Violinkonzert sowie ein Doppelkonzert fur Violine und Klavier. Als Funfzehnjahriger prasentiert Felix Mendelssohn dann seine erste Syrnphonie furgroOes Orchester (op. 1I), und zu diesem Zeitpunkt gibt es nicht mehr den geringsten Zweifel, daO er seinen Weg machen wird. Aus dem Jahre 1829 stammen die Variations concertantes op. 17 fur Violoncello und Klavier, die man von manchen Autoren mit einem einzigen Federstrich abgehandelt und abqualifiziert sieht. In Wahrheit aber geht dieses knappe, fantasie- und schwungvoll gearbeitete Werk uber die damals gangigen Klischees bloOer Unterhaltungsmusik hinaus: Das schlichte, volksliedhafte Thema wird zunachst noch imStile reiner Figuralvariationen ausgeschmuckt, doch bald schon losen sich die Konturen in einzelne, ihrerseits ausbaufahiae