Issue 8 - Why organists love Mendelssohn!

This Sunday's prelude and postlude are both by Felix Mendelssohn. The prelude music is the Prelude in G and the postlude is the Allegro Maestoso from Sonata II for organ. There's much to say about Mendelssohn and his importance in music history as the resurrector of J. S. Bach's music. His personal history is worth exploring as well. This won't be the last time that I play music of Mendelssohn; so today, I'm choosing to focus just on his importance as a composer of works for the organ.

I had the great honor of studying some with William A. Little while at Eastman. He is the foremost scholar on the organ works of Felix Mendelssohn. He eloquently writes about the dire situation of organ music in Germany in the introduction to his edition of Mendelssohn's organ works, published by Novello:

"Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was the first composer of international stature to address the organ after the death of J.S. Bach. A span of nearly a century fell between 1750 [Bach's death year] and the appearance of [Mendelssohn's] Opus 65 in September of 1845. It was in very real terms an Interregnum in the history of organ music. To be sure, the practice of organ composition never actually died out, but fundamental liturgical changes had taken place in Germany which radically diminished the role of the organ in the church service. Simultaneously, the social and cultural fabric of German life was undergoing a profound secularization - not a surprising concomitant to the general European Enlightenment - from which not even the sacrosanct organ-loft was exempt. ...the organ attracted none of the major composers of the time. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, all of them ...competent performers on the organ, ...yet among them, they left not single significant work for the instrument."

Sounds pretty hopeless, huh? Well, even though the organ in Germany was going through a sad time, Mendelssohn's prowess on the organ was loved in England. He performed in London often and for a short period of time, played during Sunday services at St. Paul's Cathedral. His first compositions for the organ, Opus 37 (Three Preludes and Fugues) from which Sunday's prelude is taken, was actually dedicated to Thomas Attwood, the organist at St. Paul's. The Three Preludes and Fugues are wonderful pieces. However, eight years later, Mendelssohn composed his Opus 65, Six Sonatas for Organ - and these are truly the crowning achievement of his organ compositions. (More on the sonatas in another [Bookends]!)

(Image: Felix Mendelssohn)