The Hammock Papers: Mendelssohn

Showing posts with label Mendelssohn. Show all posts

30 July 2026

Mendelssohn, Piano Trio in D-Minor, Op. 11

The Aletheia Piano Trio performs the Finale ...

24 June 2026

Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Kurt Masur and the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig perform the Overture ...

23 June 2026

03 February 2026

Happy Birthday, Felix Mendelssohn

Magnus, Felix Mendelssohn, 1846

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was born on this day in 1809.

The Frankfurt Radio Symphony, conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada, performs Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op.27 ...

27 December 2025

17 August 2025

Mendelssohn, Fanny, String Quartet in E-Flat Major

The Selini Quartet performs ...

24 June 2025

Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 21

Kurt Masur conducts the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig ...

03 February 2024

Happy Birthday, Mendelssohn

Magnus, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, 1832

Felix Mendelssohn was born on this day in 1809.

Dmitry Filatov conducts the Belgorod Philharmonic in a performance of the incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream ...

23 June 2023

Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night's Dream, incidental music, Op.61

Paavo Järvi conducts the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Estnischer Philharmonischer Kammerchor, featuring sopranos Miah Persson and Golda Schultz ...

01 June 2023

Fanny Mendelssohn, String Quartet in E flat major

Kate Suthers and Colette Overdijk, violins, Jessica Tickle, viola, and Miguel Fernandes, cello, perform the Allegretto ...

03 November 2022

Mendelssohn, String Symphony No.10 in B minor, MWV N 10

It's foggy again this morning.

Lorenza Borrani, violin and artistic director, leads the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra ...

02 November 2022

Excellent.

An excellent album for a foggy November morning ...

... and it's "ultra extended."

19 March 2022

Mendelssohn, "Lift Thine Eyes"

Ely Cathedral's Sixth Form Choral Scholars ...

03 February 2022

Happy Birthday, Mendelssohn

Magnus, Felix Mendelssohn, 1846

Felix Mendelssohn was born on this date in 1809.

A Midsummer Night's Dream performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Estnischer Philharmonic Chamber Choir, conducted by Paavo Järvi ...

24 June 2020

Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 21

The Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig performs the Overture, Kurt Masur conducting ...

03 February 2020

Happy Birthday, Mendelssohn

Magnus, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, 1846

Felix Mendelssohn was born on this date in 1809.

Ever since I began to compose, I have remained true to my starting principle: not to write a page because of what public or what pretty girl wanted it to be thus or thus, but to write solely as I, myself, thought best, and as it gave me pleasure.

Felix Mendelssohn

Kurt Masur conducts the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig in the Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 21, Allegro di molto

24 March 2019

Mendelssohn, Elijah, Op. 70, MWV A:25

The St. Catherine's Girl Choir performs ...

03 February 2019

Happy birthday, Mendelssohn.

Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn, 1847

Felix Mendelssohn was born on this day in 1809.

Do you agree with me, that the first condition of an artist should be to bear respect toward what is great, and to bow to it and acknowledge it and not attempt to extinguish great flames for the sake of making his own rushlight burn more brightly?

Felix Mendelssohn

The Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Dennis Russell Davies, performs Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op. 27 ...

12 November 2018

Mendelssohn, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op. 27

Dennis Russell Davies conducts the Overture with the SWR Symphony Orchestra ...

02 August 2017

Mendelssohn, Song without Words in D Major, Op. 109

Jacqueline du Pré, performs, accompanied by her mom, Iris ...

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."