Felix Mendelssohn, born in 1809 and died in 1847, a child prodigy who became a man of great accomplishment in a variety of fields and a transitional figure between the classical and romantic periods of music, is drawing plenty of attention in his bicentennial year. Even a small amount of reading reveals that there is still much to discover about this composer, from his life to his works, many of which remain unpublished.
The Lancaster chapter of the American Guild of Organists will present a Mendelssohn Festival in two concerts, one this Sunday, Feb. 8, at 3 p.m. at Covenant United Methodist Church, 110 N. Mulberry St., Lancaster. It will feature three of Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas, two preludes (including a newly discovered prelude) and several vocal works. The second concert in the festival will take place Sunday, March 8 at 7 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 29 E. Walnut St., Lancaster. It will include three more sonatas, two preludes and and five choral pieces. Both concerts are free. An offering will be taken to benefit the guild’s educational and outreach programs.
Over at Millersville University, the music department will be holding a faculty chamber music concert Sunday, Feb. 8 at 2:30 p.m. in Lyte Auditorium, featuring Christy Banks, clarinet; Laurie Reese, cello; Reuben Blundell, violin and Anita Renfroe, piano. The concert is free.
The German-born composer Lucas Foss, who died at 86 Sunday, was the recipient of the 2002 Lancaster Symphony Orchestra Composer’s Award. (Foss is shown at left accepting the award.) His poignant 1989 work ”Elegy for Anne Frank,” for narrator, piano and orchestra, was performed at the LSO’s January 2002 concerts (along with Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony, by the way) with Anne Frank’s cousin, Edith Oppenheimer Gordon, as narrator. Foss, whose family fled to Paris in 1933 after the Nazis came to power and who came to the U.S. in 1937, told the audience that he had written the eight-minute piece “very fast” because he was so inspired by Anne Frank’s diary, according to reviews in the Lancaster New Era and the Intelligencer Journal. Another review by Daniel Heslink from the Jan. 13, 2002 Sunday News, provides this description:
One cannot help but be touched by Ms. Frank’s observations on life and courage, but the effect when combined with Dr. Foss’s musical expansion was truly moving. A wistful melody for violins alternated with passages for piano in a way that suggested child-like innocence surrounded by evil. Brass, drumbeats, and a vocalise from the string players captured Holocaust horrors by suggesting a Nazi brass band. The entire effect was regulated by a generous amount of silence between sections, applied in a way to provide the listener with periods of reflection and introspection.
More good reading on Mendelssohn and Foss here.
