Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy - Wilhelm Hensel 1847

The String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80 was composed by

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 ...

in 1847. It was the last major piece he completed before he died two months later, on 4 November 1847. It is believed he composed the piece as an homage to his sister Fanny, who died on 14 May of that year. The quartet was first heard in private on 5 October 1847 in the presence of

Ignaz Moscheles Isaac Ignaz Moscheles (; 23 May 179410 March 1870) was a Bohemian piano virtuoso and composer. He was based initially in London and later at Leipzig, where he joined his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as professor of piano at the ...

. The first public performance was on 4 November 1848 at the Leipzig Konservatorium with

Joseph Joachim Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of ...

, Mendelssohn's young mentee, playing the violin. The other members of the quartet were Moritz Klengel, Freidrich Hermann, and Carl Wittman, all regular performers with Leipzig's

Gewandhaus Orchestra The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (Gewandhausorchester; also previously known in German as the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig) is a German symphony orchestra based in Leipzig, Germany. The orchestra is named after the concert hall in which it is bas ...

. The score was published posthumously in 1850 by

Breitkopf & Härtel Breitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf. The catalogue currently contains over 1,000 composers, 8,000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on ...

, Mendelssohn's longtime publishing house. The original manuscript is stored in the

Jagiellonian Library Jagiellonian Library ( pl, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, popular nickname ''Jagiellonka'') is the library of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and with almost 6.7 million volumes, one of the largest libraries in Poland, serving as a public libra ...

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

.Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix. Quartetto. Manuscript. 1847. Jagiellonian University Library. IMSLP, accessed 17 Mar. 2022. https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/c/c5/I MSLP564316-PMLP27022-Mendelssohn_-_Quartetto,_Op.80_-autograph-.pdf

Movements

# Allegro vivace assai # Allegro assai # Adagio # Finale: Allegro molto

References

External links

* String quartets by Felix Mendelssohn 1847 compositions Compositions in F minor Compositions by Felix Mendelssohn published posthumously {{chamber-composition-stub