"Mendelsson's Birthday" - the Israel Chamber Orchestra in an all-Mendelssohn program in Tel Aviv. Conductor: Roberto Forés Veses. Guest pianists: Sivan Silver, Gil Garburg

Roberto Forés Veses (Courtesy ECO)

Gil Garburg, Sivan Silver (silvergarburg.com)

 

Seeing the Recanati Auditorium of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art packed to capacity on February 22nd 2024 was proof that the Israel Chamber Orchestra's all-Mendelssohn concert was of great appeal to the concert-going public and that "Mendelssohn's Birthday" (February 4th) was a celebration not to be missed. Conducting the ICO was Roberto Forés Veses (Spain-France). Guest artists were Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg (Israel-Germany, Silver-Garburg Piano Duo).

 

Felix Mendelssohn's one-act Singspiel "Heimkehr aus der Fremde" (1829) ("Son and Stranger" or "Return of the Roamer") might be considered "musica rara" by most audiences. The composer wrote the light opera (a comedy of mistaken identities) to be played at his parents' silver wedding anniversary celebration. The Tel Aviv concert opened with its Overture Op.89, the ICO's playing underscoring the piece's charm and wit with lush and expressive playing. Then, to more familiar repertoire.  In 1842, Mendelssohn was commissioned by the King of Prussia to provide incidental music for a production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Mendelssohn seems to have had no trouble in creating music depicting the world of fairies and human lovers. In a letter, his sister Fanny had written: “We have really grown up together with the 'Midsummer Night’s Dream' and Felix, in particular, has made it his own." Forés Veses and the ICO players performed two of the eleven pieces: the Intermezzo (between Acts II and III) lively, featherweight and restless, depicting Hermia's agitation as she searches for her lover Lysander lost in the wood. The Nocturne, describing Puck’s magical control over the befuddled quartet of lovers as they sleep in the forest, features one of Mendelssohn’s finest and most poignant horn solos (here, with a couple of "clams"), the horn sound evoking the warm serenity of a summer night. I always enjoy the fine, glowing quality of the ICO's wind players. With winds cardinal in Mendelssohn's instrumental music, the players' rich timbres were prominent throughout the concert.  

 

Mendelssohn was thirteen when the family left Germany to spend two years in Switzerland. There, Felix produced four string symphonies, a violin sonata, a piano quintet, the early C Minor Symphony, a double concerto for violin and piano and the two concertos for two pianos, the latter probably written with his sister and himself in mind. The first private performance of the E Major Concerto took place at one of the Sunday concerts taking place at the Mendelssohn house in Berlin. Written at age 14, it was regarded as immature by the budding composer. Hence, it was set aside and not published. Remaining in manuscript until 1961, the Leipziger Ausgabe der Werke Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy issued a version substantially revised by Mendelssohn himself and edited by Karl-Heinz Köhler. At the ICO concert, Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg's handling of the piano roles - of the two pianos with each other and with the orchestra - highlighted Mendelssohn's astonishing creativity and flair, reminding the listener that the adolescent Mendelssohn was already the great melodist of the "Songs without Words", au courant with the German virtuoso piano school and on the verge of artistic maturity. In this sparkling, untroubled work, brimming with youthful vivacity, the composer skilfully weaves darker colours into the music to create contrasts, as heard in the delectable slow movement which was spelled out with warmth, elegance and grace. Altogether, Silver and Garburg engaged in spirited and imaginative interplay, the latter allowing for their individual personalities to shine through. They thrilled the audience with the dashing scales, arpeggios and fleet-footed figurations (albeit articulately enounced) in the final movement.  Add to these the ICO's sympathetic strings and delightful wind playing. For their encore, Silver and Garburg played the sprightly Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s own four-hand (one piano) transcription of the incidental music to "A Midsummer Night's Dream". 

 

In October 1830, Felix Mendelssohn travelled to Italy, remaining there for ten months. Impressions of the trip remain in a series of watercolours and sketches he produced, but also in Symphony No.4 in A major Op.90, "Italian". Apart from the final movement, the symphony is not Italian music as such; rather, it puts into sounds the composer's response to the congeniality of Mediterranean sunshine (Mendelssohn referred to the symphony as a “blue sky in A major”), to Italy's religious solemnity, monumental art and architecture and to the beauty of the Italian countryside. Roberto Forés Veses led the ICO instrumentalists through the work in all its luxuriance, grace and flavours, his uniquely definitive and elegant conducting language addressing the score's gestures and minutest details, summoning up the forthright joy and immediacy of the opening Allegro vivace, the wistful ambiance of the Andante con moto (recalling processions Mendelssohn had witnessed in Rome) and presenting a finely-shaped and supple reading of the Minuet (Con moto moderato). With the raucous Neapolitan saltarello as its basis, the final movement was a scene of joyful abandon, hurtling to a close with a minor-key reiteration of the first movement’s opening theme. 

 

Felix Mendelssohn died before reaching the age of 40. One can only speculate what musical riches were denied the world by so tragically early a demise.