It has been argued that Mendelsohn was a master-craftsman in the art of instrumentation, choosing at least 3 contrasting passages. Discuss.

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It has been argued that Mendelsohn was a master-craftsman in the art of instrumentation, choosing at least 3 contrasting passages. Discuss.

Mendelsohn wrote the Hebrides overture in the summer of 1829 in response to seeing and walking in the Hebrides and in paticular visiting Fingal's Cave on an island in the outer Hebredies. Like Mozart before him, he was regarded as a child prodigy and composed several works before he was seventeen. Therefore when we consider the question posed, we must acknowledge Mendelsohn set about writing his concert overture with an esteemed background.

The concert overture has many different forms but Mendelsohn used Sonata form for his Hebrides overture (a common decision to make in this Classical period). It could be argued that Sonata form is indicative of Mendelsohn's relative conservatism as it has a fairly strict pattern to follow, both in terms of form, key and temperement:

It is clear that Mendelsohn did indeed use three contrasting passages with the addition of the 52 bar long Coda (normally a more brief concluding passage at the end of a work). Sonata form has many positives that work well in this Overture: Mendelsohn's original theme (fig 1) is clearly audible in the cello part in bar 1 of the exposition which gives the grounding for the whole piece (indeed, it has been argued that this theme is the genesis of the whole piece but that is a different essay entirely.) and us repeated in all parts of the work. Because the themes are so important they need to be clearly exposed and the exposition does this effectively.

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Sonata form also allows for two subjects in the exposition (bars 1-96) and he intertwines them immaculately. An example of this is the chord structure of the two subjects: they are both constructed from notes 1,2,3 and five of the scale but this does not mean to say they are too similar: the second subject is in D major and is a four-bar melody as opposed to the smaller 1 bar motif of the first subject. The first subject is a springboard for the second subject but is not relied upon. In this way Mendelsohn demonstrates his 'master-craftsmanship'.

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