In My Changer, 8/11/06: Rebooted

Felix Mendelssohn, Symphonies No. 3 ("Scottish") and 4 ("Italian")

London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, cond.

Deutsche Grammophon

Buy it here

         Lately I've been thinking a lot about Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, which I have in a fine performance by Claudio Abbado leading the London Symphony Orchestra. (I can kind of imagine a better performance, but not so much so as to make me really want to spend money on another one. I've got more important collection holes to fill.)

         The first time I heard the Italian was when I was about 14. I had begged my parents to take me to the Kennedy Center to see Sir Georg Solti lead the Vienna Philharmonic in the aforementioned opus and Beethoven's Eroica. (Yes, I am aware that I am a nerd.) The latter was the big draw for me.; from the conception of my interest in classical, I was always a Beethovenian, and I have to admit that I complained somewhat intemperately about the gentleness of the Mendelssohn's charms to my bemused mother. In particular, I savaged the third movement "Con molto moderato," which fourteen-year-old me considered a nauseatingly sugar-coated interlude.

         Nevertheless, in my drive to acquire the entire standard repertoire before I turned 20 (goal not met! I didn't have a Mendelssohn violin concerto until last year!), I picked up the Abbado recording that I presently own and that is presently in my changer. Coupled with an appropriately lugubrious recording of the Scottish symphony, the sunny charms of the Italian became more apparent, and I played it a decent amount. I remember being impressed that the preview and commercials for Chris Elliott's "Cabin Boy" used the first movement's super-ebullient opening to get the comedy going. But it didn't make any kind of deep impression that would lead me to ponder it like I have for the last week.

         No, that had to wait until I figured out that the symphony was good music to have in my head while I was running, just like the Notorious B.I.G's "One More Chance (Hip-Hop Remix)" and Chuck Brown's "Feel Like Moving Your Body." Well, maybe not just like. Anyway, I would play the symphony in my head as I ran to help pick up my pace on the backstretch of my run, skipping the "Andante con moto" second movement as still not being con moto enough. That's what I did last Sunday.

         When I came home, I said to myself, "That was fun. Let's listen to it for real." Being 1 pm, I had the volume up a bit, and I found myself arrested by a moment in the development section of the first movement. For almost the whole movement, Mendelssohn has some sort of backup figure going on as he lays out his melodies: the clucking of the winds as the main theme comes on the strings, for example. When the development hits, he turns up the figuration, so you have a melody loud atop the sonic pie and devilisly fast scuttering around it. But then, having fashioned a semi-stern minor-mode phrase from the first melody, he drops out the figuration entirely, leaving the timpani-enhanced sternness to stand on its own. What's more, the timpani don't play on exactly the beats you'd expect them to, so you're left both hanging in the air waiting for the filigree and stopping short waiting for the beats to come. Mendelssohn, not abiding too much disturbance, moves quickly on, but that moment has been replaying itself in my head all week. (Not to mention my changer; I believe this is Mendelssohn Italian Symphony Spin No. 4 for this seven-day period.) Just one little storm cloud in a sunny sky, albeit a thunderous one, and all the more haunting for that.

         By the way, the third movement is better than I gave it credit for. And even the least sentimental fourteen-year-old, the teenager most longing for death and destruction, would have to admit that the Saltarello finale is nails. Begins with a minor-key slap to the face and never lets up.

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