Felix Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sy ...

Sextet A sextet (or hexad) is a formation containing exactly six members. The former term is commonly associated with vocal ensembles (e.g. The King's Singers, Affabre Concinui) or musical instrument groups, but can be applied to any situation where six ...

D major D major (or the key of D) is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor. The D major scale is: : Ch ...

, Op. 110, MWV Q 16, for

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

, two

violas ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

, and

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

was composed in April–May 1824, when Mendelssohn was only 15, the same time he was working on a comic opera '' Die Hochzeit des Camacho''. Its composition took place between the

Viola Sonata The viola sonata is a sonata for viola, sometimes with other instruments, usually piano. The earliest viola sonatas are difficult to date for a number of reasons: *in the Baroque era, there were many works written for the viola da gamba, includin ...

and the Piano Quartet No. 3. It also preceded the famous Octet, Op. 20 by about a year. 1824 is also the probable year of the composition of the

Clarinet Sonata A clarinet sonata is piece of music in sonata form for clarinet, often with piano accompaniment. The Clarinet Sonatas by Brahms are of special significance in the development of the clarinet repertoire. Several important transcriptions are also p ...

. Like the latter, the Sextet was not published during the composer's lifetime. Its first edition was issued in 1868 as a part of a complete collection of Mendelssohn's works. Hence the misleading high opus number. The composer's autograph of the score (in his ''Nachlass'' at the

Berlin State Library The Berlin State Library (german: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. It is one of the larg ...

) has a date at the end of it: May 10, 1824.R. Larry Todd. ''Booklet notes to'' musica omni
mo0205
/ref> The manuscript is relatively clean and contains too few corrections to let us track the evolution of the work. It is also never mentioned in Mendelssohn's letters. The scoring, tipping the balance of the strings toward the darker and lower registers, gives the piano a dominating position in most of the piece. This makes the Sextet more of a chamber piano concerto than a pure chamber piece. This scoring is reminiscent of

Johann Nepomuk Hummel Johann Nepomuk Hummel (14 November 177817 October 1837) was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the Transition from Classical to Romantic music, transition from the Classical period (music), Classical to the Romantic ...

's Septet No. 1 in D minor, Op.74 (for piano, flute, oboe, horn, viola, cello and double bass) of 1816, which was issued in a version for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass (not a unique, but also not a common scoring at that time, the most popular composition for which is

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

's ''

Trout Quintet The ''Trout Quintet'' (''Forellenquintett'') is the popular name for the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, by Franz Schubert. The piano quintet was composed in 1819, when he was 22 years old; it was not published, however, until 1829, a year af ...

'' of 1819). However, in Mendelssohn's Sextet a second viola is added to this ensemble. Such scoring can be found in

Ferdinand Ries Ferdinand Ries (baptised 28 November 1784 – 13 January 1838) was a German composer. Ries was a friend, pupil and secretary of Ludwig van Beethoven. He composed eight symphonies, a violin concerto, nine piano concertos (the first concerto ...

's undated Sextet in C major, WoO 76 and

Henri Bertini Henri Jérôme Bertini (28 October 1798 – 30 September 1876) was a French classical composer and pianist. He was born into a family of musicians and attracted the attention of François-Joseph Fétis when he toured Europe as a child prodigy. ...

's Sextets Nos. 4 and 5 (1830s–1840s). No performances for this work during the composer's lifetime are documented.Michael Horst. ''Booklet notes to'' GENUIN Classic
GEN 10166
(2010)

Structure

The work has four

movements Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

: # ''Allegro vivace'' (D major, ) # ''Adagio'' (

F-sharp major F-sharp major (or the key of F) is a major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has six sharps. The F-sharp major scale is: : Its relative minor is D-sharp minor (or enharmonically E-f ...

, ) # ''Menuetto. Agitato'' (

D minor D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has one flat. Its relative major is F major and its parallel major is D major. The D natural minor scale is: Changes needed for t ...

, ) ''– Trio'' (

F major F major (or the key of F) is a major scale based on F, with the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat. Its relative minor is D minor and its parallel minor is F minor F minor is a minor scale based on F, consis ...

) # ''Allegro vivace'' (D major, ) ''— Allegro con fuoco'' (a reminiscence of the minuet, D minor) ''— Allegro con fuoco'' (D minor, ends with a long

Picardy third A Picardy third, (; french: tierce picarde) also known as a Picardy cadence or Tierce de Picardie, is a major chord of the tonic at the end of a musical section that is either modal or in a minor key. This is achieved by raising the third of the ...

) A typical performance of the work takes around 30–32 minutes.

References

External links

* Chamber music by Felix Mendelssohn Compositions for double bass Compositions for piano sextet 1824 compositions Compositions in D major Compositions by Felix Mendelssohn published posthumously {{chamber-composition-stub