DQB123 Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 Brethren Surely we can't let today go by without a chorus of Happy Birthday To You to mark the 200th birthday of Felix Mendelssohn. I noticed his anniversary in today's Times, and thought that by now we should be popping the champagne corks and toasting dear Felix to the strains of The War March of the Priests (arr. WT Best). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Patrick Coleman Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 Brethren Surely we can't let today go by without a chorus of Happy Birthday To You to mark the 200th birthday of Felix Mendelssohn. I noticed his anniversary in today's Times, and thought that by now we should be popping the champagne corks and toasting dear Felix to the strains of The War March of the Priests (arr. WT Best). Hear, hear! And the War March of the Priests has already made an appearance in Abertillery (though whether in response to the bicentenary or to my sermon, I wasn't sure)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Ball Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 Brethren Surely we can't let today go by without a chorus of Happy Birthday To You to mark the 200th birthday of Felix Mendelssohn. I noticed his anniversary in today's Times, and thought that by now we should be popping the champagne corks and toasting dear Felix to the strains of The War March of the Priests (arr. WT Best). Here here! Did anyone here the EBU broadcasts on R3 on Sunday? Wonderful to hear 'grand' Bach on the Thomaskirche Sauer (as well as the exquisite Woehl organ, of course), not to mention all the marvellous Mendelssohn. Well worth a listen on iPlayer if you missed it. IFB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Coram Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 Already done - piano recital with David Owen Norris in the Turner Sims this lunchtime, combining the opening of a new piano (Mason and Hamlin grand - completely splendid, knocks spots off the Steinway D next to it) with his recording (last weekend) of the Songs without Words. A most interesting lecture-recital with all sorts of interesting insights into what Mendelssohn may have meant by 'crescendo' and 'dim' - did he really mean also get faster and get slower? Lots and lots of evidence to suggest this might have been the case. Mendelssohn, being an organist, knew how to get tension out of music without just banging a bit harder when he got to 'sf' - he would use timing and rubato to make a rhetorical statement. A subsequent rehearsal of Elijah this evening pointed out to me that many of the numbers end with 'dim', 'dim' and 'dim', even though in at least one case those instructions come between two 'p's. Moreover, in a piece (Songs without Words book 1 no 4, I think) positively littered with hairpins and cresc/dims, and most definitely not meant to slow up at the end, the last instructions (over the last six bars) are 'piu forte', 'piu forte', 'piu forte' and 'piu e piu forte al fortissimo' (or somesuch - my Italian is non existent). Why not just 'crescendo', if there is not meant to be a distinction? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Roffensis Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 When i first saw your post I though you meant Aphrahamian! R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bombarde32 Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 As dear Felix's anniversary corresponds with my own wedding anniversay, I am never allowed to forget him (courtesy of frying pan to back of head etc.........) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Riley Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 When i first saw your post I though you meant Aphrahamian! R Yes, I thought that too! I once spent a very interesting hour or so chez Aprahamian in the company of my dear friend Gerco Schaap. One wonders what has become of all the Organ Music Society papers, posters and other documentation which Felix had hoarded since the 1930s? Amazing to think that FA's House in Muswell Hill had played host to Poulenc and that Elgar's 'Nimrod', Augustus Jaeger, had lived nearby. Malcolm Riley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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