Search - Mendelssohn, Flor, Bamberg Symphony :: Overtures

A Worthy Addition. . .

J Keistler | Lake Jackson, Texas USA | 12/10/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I bought this CD for one performance: "Fingel's Cave". I'd heard it on my local station and it clicked with me immediately. After buying the CD I realized the entire disc is superb, definitely rosette quality. His interpretation of "Calm Sea" has become my favorite also. Even after several years I still return to this disc regularly. The reasonable price today makes it even more worth purchasing. I saw Flor recently in performance and his work, live, matches his performance on disc. Highly recommended for any Mendelssohn enthusiast!"

Fresh Mendelssohn

Brett A. Kniess | Madison, WI | 01/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This disk is filled with Mendelssohn's most famous overtures, some from staged works, others written just for the concert stage. Taken from various times in his compositional career, these six overtures show his genius from Opus 10 to Opus 95.



The early Marriage of Comancho was an opera Mendelssohn wrote based on episodes from Don Quixote. It is a youthful piece with a fresh and exciting underlying perpetual motion. Indeed, the straight-forward harmonies and rhythms remind one of Mozart, but the colorful orchestrations are all Mendelssohn. The more well-known overture to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream was written originally as a piano duet at the age of 17. Some time later, he orchestrated it into the masterpiece it is known today. The famous opening chords lead into a scherzo-like violin fantasy, evoking a magical landscape of pixies and the like. Mendelssohn follows various sequences of the story and translates them into the music, including some donkey brayings, elfish portrayals, etc. The music is inventive and melodic, offering great sweeping heroic melodies as well as skittish fantastical ones. A great masterpiece with great variety.



The two Goethe poems A Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage are the backdrop to Mendelssohn's overture of the same name. A rich and dark chorale, rooted mainly in the strings, opens the work, representing the grandeur of the sea and the impending voyage. The clarinet has a descending theme that will be picked up in the faster section, one of simplicity, but also of sentimentality and heroicism. After the short opening, the extroverted Prosperous Voyage sets sail, bounding into undaunted optimism. A jumpy woodwind theme is pronounced before unison strings bring in the previously mentioned theme. Woodwind and string burblings, along with heroic brass exclamations, give the work a carefree feel. Equally dramatic is the Ruy Blas overture to the Victor Hugo play. A forceful brass chorale opens the work and is often recalled throughout; the strings add tension, of which, it does not relent for some minutes. The work takes a happier turn after the fourth brass chorale statement, and the "On Wisconsin" sounding theme appears. This dramatically boisterous overture is cleanly written, with athletic motives and intriguing orchestrations; a masterful composition. Much the same, the Athalia overture opens with an almost Bach-like chorale. Mendelssohn's gift for inventive orchestrations contrasts the dramatic tenseness with the romantic pastoral lyricism with ingenuity.



The most famous overture on the disk is surely the Hebrides overture based on a place Mendelssohn visited in Scotland called Fingal's Cave. His gift for writing melody is exemplified here with two rather haunting melodies. The first appears at the opening, a descending, almost modal melody which starts minor but rises into the major, sending chills. The melody never tires, it is used throughout, because of the unique and never uninteresting orchestrations and settings. A second, more yearning melody enters, first in the bassoon and cello, taken over by the violins, and later by an emotionally moving clarinet duo. A highly inspired work, raw emotion and great music.



There are many Mendelssohn overture disks, but Claus Peter Flor and the Bamburg Symphony Orchestra provide a fresh and electric performance. The highly colorful and melodic music is brought to the forefront by this ensemble with sweeping line and unabashed motion and depth. The orchestra speaks well, although, a drier recording space might have given the ensemble more bite. And even though the disk is rather hard to find, it is well worth the search."