Sunday 14 June

Felix Mendelssohn
Symphony No 1 in C minor Op 11 (London Version)
^1824/29

1. Allegro di molto
2. Andante
3. Scherzo: Allegro leggierissimo
4. Allegro con fuoco

The 15-year-old Mendelssohn entitled his Symphony in C minor ‘No 13’ when he produced it in 1824, a sign that he initially considered it to be next in line in the sequence of twelve accomplished so-called ‘string symphonies’ he had composed in the previous three years.

But it is not just the presence of wind instruments that placed it in a different category from those childhood works and resulted in the eventual initiation of a new numbering sequence. This is a symphony on a higher level of assurance; though audibly derivative at times of Mozart, Beethoven and Weber, its verve and construction show astonishing ability for a composer of such tender years.

The first movement bursts with energy, C minor not signalling tragedy (as in Mozart) or dark turbulence (à la Beethoven), but bracing urgency and drive. And while the melodic material is not greatly distinguished in itself, the main themes are expertly delineated, their sequence of statement and return deftly handled. It is followed by an Andante in which the main theme’s comfortable major-key harmonies bring a warmly idyllic feel, though one that gains a certain restlessness from the way it is varied on each return, as well as from recurring syncopated murmurings in the strings.

For the third movement the teenage Mendelssohn originally wrote a driving C minor Menuetto with a contrasting central Trio in which woodwind swayed gently over lapping strings. But for his first visit to London in May 1829 – when, now all of 20, he directed the Symphony himself at a Philharmonic Society concert – he substituted instead his own orchestral enlargement of the brilliantly mercurial and individual Scherzo from the string Octet he had composed in 1825, a year after the Symphony. The reception was enthusiastic, and afterwards Mendelssohn – embarking on what would be a lastingly warm relationship with British audiences – presented his autograph copy of the score to the Society, who went on to perform it in this altered form for the rest of the century. This is the version of the Symphony we hear tonight.

If, after this quintessentially Mendelssohnian movement, the concluding Allegro con fuoco finale starts out sounding like the finale of Mozart’s G minor Symphony, K550, there is both originality ahead in the way the music slows to admit stalking string pizzicati over which a slender clarinet melody emerges, and skill in two adroitly assimilated fugues.

<sub>Note by Lindsay Kemp

Lindsay Kemp is a senior producer for BBC Radio 3, including programming lunchtime concerts at Wigmore Hall and LSO St Luke’s. He is also Artistic Advisor to York Early Music Festival, Artistic Director of Baroque at the Edge Festival and a regular contributor to Gramophone magazine.</sub>

Mendelssohn’s overture was first performed in Stettin in April 1827, and quickly became one of his most popular pieces. In 1842, however, he was commissioned by the King of Prussia to provide incidental music for a production of the play, to be preceded by the overture; Mendelssohn obliged, and his complete score, consisting of songs, entr’actes and various other little snippets, was heard for the first time in Potsdam, October 1843. This performance, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, includes some cuts to the original movements, removing all of the music relating to the Mechanicals and thus focusing on the world of the fairies and the human lovers.

Remarkably, Mendelssohn seems to have had no trouble in re-creating the atmosphere of his teenage masterpiece 16 years on. That much is evident in the Scherzo, which, if a little earthier (perhaps even more sinister) than the fairy music of the Overture, clearly inhabits the same world.

Elsewhere, the Intermezzo brings a Schumannesque depiction of the emotional turmoil of the lovers lost in the wood; the Nocturne welcomes Puck’s magical righting of the night’s errors and misunderstandings in one of Mendelssohn’s greatest melodies; two fairies prepare the bower for Titania’s slumber in a Song with Chorus; and the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta is celebrated in what has become the most ubiquitous Wedding March ever written.

_{Note by Lindsay Kemp}

Sir John Eliot Gardiner
^conductor

Sir John Eliot Gardiner stands as an international leader in today's musical life, respected as one of the world's most innovative and dynamic musicians, constantly at the forefront of enlightened interpretation. His work as Artistic Director of his Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique has marked him out as a central figure in the early music revival and a pioneer of historically informed performance. As a regular guest of the world's leading symphony orchestras, including the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Berlin Philharmonic, Gardiner conducts repertoire from the 17th to the 20th century.

The extent of Gardiner's repertoire is illustrated in the extensive catalogue of award-winning recordings with his own ensembles and leading orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic on major labels (including Decca, Philips, Erato and 30 recordings for Deutsche Grammophon), as wide-ranging as Mozart, Schumann, Berlioz, Elgar and Kurt Weill, in addition to works by Renaissance and Baroque composers. Since 2005, the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras have recorded on their independent label, Soli Deo Gloria, established to release the live recordings made during Gardiner's Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, for which he received Gramophone's 2011 Special Achievement Award and a Diapason d'or de l'année 2012. His many recording accolades include two GRAMMY awards and he has received more Gramophone Awards than any other living artist.

Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras perform regularly at the world's major venues and festivals, including Salzburg, Berlin and Lucerne festivals, Lincoln Center and the BBC Proms, where Gardiner has performed over 60 times since his debut in 1968. In 2017, they celebrated the 450th anniversary of the birth of Monteverdi, for which they were awarded the RPS Music Award and Gardiner named Conductor of the Year at the Opernwelt Awards. Last season, they also toured together to Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Teatro alla Scala and Vienna Musikverein. Gardiner has conducted operas at the Wiener Staatsoper, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Opéra national de Paris and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where he has appeared regularly since his debut in 1973 and returned last season for Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. From 1983 to 1988 he was artistic director of Opéra de Lyon, where he founded its new orchestra.

Gardiner's book, Music in the Castle of Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach, was published in October 2013 by Allen Lane, and awarded the Prix des Muses award (Singer-Polignac). From 2014 to 2017, Gardiner was the first ever President of the BachArchiv Leipzig. Among numerous awards in recognition of his work, Sir John Eliot Gardiner holds honorary doctorates from the Royal College of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, the universities of Lyon, Cremona, St Andrews and King’s College, Cambridge where he himself studied and is now an Honorary Fellow; he is also an Honorary Fellow of King's College, London and the British Academy, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, who awarded him their prestigious Bach Prize in 2008; he became the inaugural Christoph Wolff Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Harvard University in 2014/15 and was awarded the Concertgebouw Prize in January 2016. Gardiner was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 2011, and was given the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2005. In the UK, he was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1990, and awarded a knighthood for his services to music in the 1998 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

_{Image: Sim Canetty-Clarke}