Symphoniekonzert IV

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy amazed with his eminent compositional abilities from an early age. Filling classical forms with a new romantic spirit and giving sound and expression new dimensions were hallmarks of his creative activity. This is evident in his ingenious overture to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream—the work of a seventeen-year-old—as well as in the concert overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage from 1828, a musical reflection on two atmospherically very different poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The very young Mendelssohn is present with his Violin Concerto in D minor, accompanied only by strings, schooled in Mozart but designed with an individual approach. In the Reformation Symphony, composed for the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession in 1830 and premiered two years later with the Berlin Hofkapelle under his own direction, a serious, solemn tone emerges, while the quotes—the "Dresden Amen" and the Luther chorale "A Mighty Fortress"—point to the sacred sphere.