Hebrides Overture

Eighteen twenty-nine was a momentous year in musical history, and the experiences of composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) provide several key points. In early March he led the now-famous performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Berlin—the first large-scale performance of that piece since Bach’s death and a spark toward widespread interest in “historical” concerts. (As a side note, SMF will offer Bach’s Passion in August 2014!) Second, he left for a tour of England in April and offered the London premiere of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto. Later that summer, he continued his travels to Scotland. The visual impressions were as powerful as any on his imagination. As he put it, “Everything looks so stern and robust here, even if it all is half obscured by steam or smoke or fog.” Though he would quickly tire of bagpipe competitions and folk music around every corner, he took enough positive inspiration to fill two beloved works: the Symphony No. 3 in A Minor (“Scottish”) and the Hebrides Overture.
Mendelssohn wrote the Hebrides Overture, subtitled “Fingal’s Cave,” while on a tour of the Scottish highlands. Many of the sights were captured by the composer in stunning pencil drawings and watercolors; musical composition was not the only art at which he excelled. Indeed, as one Mendelssohn scholar has uncovered, the earliest sketch for the Overture’s main theme appears on the same date (August 7, 1829) as the composer’s exquisite pencil drawing of Fingal’s Cave. Mendelssohn vacillated over various titles, some of which strayed much closer to a programmatic conception, and the work was not published for about six years. It has the not-altogether flattering distinction of being one of the few works by this Jewish composer that merited praise from the antisemitic Richard Wagner. Still, Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, for instance, owes a great deal to Mendelssohn’s coloristic depiction of sea and sky.
The work is not an overture to anything else. It stands on its own, captivating in orchestral effects (particularly the use of string tremolos and crescendos to suggest the roiling seas) and simple, haunting main themes. Mendelssohn carefully highlights subtle changes from minor to major as a way to cast figurative light into the dark recesses of Fingal’s cave. At the work’s midpoint, a sunny turn to D major sounds like a simple optimistic finish to a rather modest-sized overture. Instead, a slide to G major, then G minor, reinvigorates the scene, launching us headlong back into the storm’s fury. The dramatic pacing of Hebrides is assured throughout. No wonder Wagner could overcome his bigotry—if only momentarily—to praise Mendelssohn’s achievement.

(c) Jason Stell