Original Version of the First Movement of Felix Mendelssohn's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in E Major

Felix Mendelssohn

In the autumn of 1823, the 14-year-old Felix Mendelssohn completed his Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in E major. This work was the fourth in a series of five attempts at composing concertos that the young composer made between 1821 and 1824. Following the 12 string symphonias and other works cast in larger forms from the early 1820s, the E major Concerto was also Mendelssohn's first effort at writing for a larger orchestra, including double winds, brass, and percussion.

With Felix and his sister Fanny as soloists, the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in E major was premiered shortly after its completion at one of the Mendelssohn family's Sunday musicales in their Berlin home. Nothing other than the date is known about the circumstances of this performance. Subsequently the budding composer came to regard the piece, as well as the other four early concertos, as immature. He set them aside and decided to withhold them all from publication.

Felix Mendelssohn, Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in E Major. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn Archiv, Mendelssohn Nachlaß, Mus. ms. MN 15, p. 55.

At a later date, probably around the time of composition of the Piano Concerto no. 1 in G minor, op. 25 in the early 1830s, the now mature Mendelssohn returned to the E major Concerto and began an extensive process of revision, particularly on the first movement. He deleted 20 per cent and significantly altered and rearranged large segments of the rest of the movement. The revisions affect thematic material shared by the soloists and the tutti (with attempts to delineate the themes into the exclusive provenance of either the soloists or the orchestra), the harmonic construction and pace of development, and the pruning of portions of the soloist's virtuosic passage that the mature composer now regarded as excessive and hollow. However, Mendelssohn again regarded his efforts as unfruitful. At this time, he abandoned the heavily worked-over manuscript, with many portions of his original conception completely obscured by the revisions.

A fortunate turn of events preserved Mendelssohn's original intention in the Concerto, in an entirely separate manuscript. In late 1824, approximately one year after the completion of the work, the 30-year-old composer and pianist Ignaz Moscheles was in the midst of a concert tour which took him to Berlin for several weeks. During this visit, he met the Mendelssohn family and spent much time at their home, performing and discussing music with both Felix and Fanny. In his diary Moscheles mentions that Felix showed him an original double concerto. Moscheles most likely made a copy of Mendelssohn's Concerto at that time.

Since Moscheles's copy was made before Mendelssohn undertook his extensive revisions, it preserves the original conception of the work. Moreover, because the Mendelssohn autograph contains a number of words in English related to the revisions, the recomposition seems to stem from Mendelssohn's efforts to get the piece ready to perform, either for his debut in London in 1829 or for another visit in 1833. However, the composer concluded that it was impossible to revise the E major Double Concerto successfully. Mendelssohn neither published the work nor performed it again in his lifetime.

Felix Mendelssohn, Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in E Major. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn Archiv, Mendelssohn Nachlaß, Mus. ms. MN 15, p. 55.

Some 12 years after Mendelssohn's death, two rather cryptic references to the Concerto are found. The first of these was scribbled by Moscheles on the title page of his copy of the Concerto, and the other stems from Moscheles's diary entry of 22 June 1860. Both references describe a performance of the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in E major by two of Moscheles's students at the Leipzig Conservatory, where he was a Professor of Piano.

The Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra remained in manuscript for over a century, until the Leipziger Ausgabe der Werke Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy issued the composer's substantially revised version, edited by Karl-Heinz Köhler in 1961. With A-R's publication of the original version of the first movement as preserved in Moscheles's copy, we are permitted for the first time to see the young Mendelssohn's initial conception of the work at this nascent point in his development. Moreover, by comparing the original conception with the revised version as found in Köhler's edition, we are permitted a view into the “composer's workshop.” Mendelssohn's grappling with such issues as the role of virtuosity, harmonic design, and thematic relationships between tutti and soloists are evident. The Recent Researches edition also offers a fascinating glimpse into a crucial point in the evolution of the concerto genre by one of the most important composers active in the genre in the early nineteenth century.♦

Stephan D. Lindeman

Stephan D. Lindeman is professor of music at Brigham Young University, where he serves as division coordinator for music theory and composition. His various publications include a monograph with Pendragon Press on Structural Novelty and Tradition in the Early Romantic Concerto and a recent article in The Musical Quarterly on Mendelssohn's Concerto for Two Pianos.