American Players Theatre actor Nate Burger portrays the composer.
Composer Felix Mendelssohn was an inveterate tinkerer, revisiting and revising his own classical compositions almost ad nauseam, tightening notes here and lengthening measures there. It was central to the German composer’s creative process.
Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90, written when the composer was just 24 and three years after a trip to Italy, was no different.
“Research found in Mendelssohn’s papers indicated how hard he struggled to get things just right,” says John DeMain, music director for the Madison Symphony Orchestra. “He was self-deprecating and very hard on himself, leading to multiple variations of this composition.”
DeMain adds that Mendelssohn dedicated this symphony to his mother, who didn’t like heavy, dark, moody music.
“This is a very positive, frothy and ebullient symphony,” adds DeMain.
Later this month Mrs. Mendelssohn’s favorite composition, also known as the “Italian Symphony,” will be fully explored by DeMain and MSO in the orchestra’s annual Beyond the Score offering. The single performance on Jan. 20 also will tap the acting skills of American Players Theatre veterans Sarah Day, Jonathan Smoots and Nate Burger, who portrays Mendelssohn, to tell the tale of the composer’s trip through Italy and the composition that made his mother proud.
This will be the fourth annual Beyond the Score performance, a program licensed from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra that includes multimedia backdrops in addition to live actors and a full performance by the orchestra. Thus far, the approach has been popular with audiences, DeMain says.
“This is an adult music appreciation course,” says DeMain. “MSO has very sophisticated listeners, casual listeners and even people who are afraid to listen. These are well-researched programs. I always study any composition I conduct from cover to cover, and even I have learned things from Beyond the Score.”
Mendelssohn, who completed the 30-minute symphony in Berlin in 1833, based its four movements on various destinations within the Italian peninsula. After enduring numerous gray German winters, DeMain says, Mendelssohn found the country’s sunshine, warmth and the openness of its people exhilarating. His ebullience is evident throughout the work.
The familiar opening Allegro vivace movement sounds like a gallop through the woods and may have been the first time such a musical device was used, DeMain explains. Mendelssohn straddled both the Classical and Romantic periods, and the influences of each are evident in his various works.
The Italian Symphony premiered in 1833 in London with Mendelssohn himself conducting. The performance met with great success, but was never again performed in Mendelssohn’s lifetime, which enabled the composer’s ongoing tinkering.
“We don’t often have access to numerous versions of a work, but we do here,” explains DeMain. “The performance delves into its various compositional aspects. For the second half, we’ll be performing the version first performed in London.”
Audience members can then judge for themselves whether or not the composer deserved Mrs. Mendelssohn’s adoration.
