Mendelssohn - Double Concerto - Violin Sonata in F

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra in D minor

Sonata for Violin and Piano in F major

Franco Gulli, Violin
Enrica Cavallo, Piano

Chamber Orchestra of the Angelicum (Milan)
Pierluigi Urbini

(Schwann, recorded 1966)

________________________

The reason why Franz Berwald's music is not even remotely as POPULAR as that of Mendelssohn is pretty simple.

Berwald's music does not fit into conventional "sense making" categories and takes a LOT of time and repeated listening to comprehend. Berwald is about as far as one can get from being a musical "quick fix" (there are a number of other things going on with Berwald, but this is the essence of his ongoing "difficulty").

To the contrary, Mendelssohn's music fits PERFECTLY into conventional "sense making" categories and takes almost NO time to comprehend. In fact, Mendelssohn's music makes very few demands of any kind - which even Mendelssohn himself eventually recognized, leading him to openly confess boredom for his own music (the really unfortunate thing being that Mendelssohn didn't live long enough to remedy this problem). This doesn't mean that Mendelssohn isn't great - only that his confinement to conventional patterns of musical sense has it's limitations (no, one can't listen to Mendelssohn over and over like Berwald ... at least, I can't ... but it sure helps to have better-than-average Mendelssohn performances such as the ones offered here).

The more one puts into understanding a composer like Berwald, the more one gets in return. Unfortunately, to get to Berwald in the first place may involve overcoming certain limitations (for example, an aversion to complexity conditioned by too much exposure to mass-produced music along with suffering from the masterpiece / master composer syndrome) - and this can be much more difficult than making sense out of Berwald.

____________________________

LP transfer of above material.
includes cover, label & notes (German).