CSMF 2019 presents Festival Finale: Beethoven & Mendelssohn

David Hill conductor

 

Mendelssohn The Hebrides Overture - 'Fingal's Cave'

Beethoven Piano Concerto No.4 

Mendelssohn Italian Symphony

 

Felix Mendelssohn is widely acknowledged as the musician who did most to restore the reputation of JS Bach, after a period of obscurity following Bach’s death. Most famously, he revived and conducted the St Matthew Passion at the age of just 20, having first studied the score as a young teenager.

 

It is fitting therefore that the Finale of this 2019 festival celebrating Bach and his influence should focus on Mendelssohn, who learned so much from the great master. Fingal’s Cave evokes Mendelssohn’s trip to the Island of Staffa while on a tour of the Hebrides, complete with the churning waves. The Italian symphony also originates in a journey – this time to Italy during a grand tour of Europe. He was captivated with the sights and sounds of Rome and Naples, and declared that the work was ‘the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last movement’.

 

In between, we will hear Beethoven’s mighty fourth piano concerto, which had its first public outing in Vienna in 1808 with the composer himself as soloist. Tonight, French pianist Patrick Hemmerlé, who has delighted audiences at previous Summer Music Festival concerts with his Bach and Chopin interpretations, takes to the platform, joined by the vibrant young Orpheus Sinfonia under the baton of Festival Director David Hill.