Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Statement of the problem. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy occupies a distinguished place in the history of German music as a celebrated composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher. However, his early, little-known piano Sonatas, written in 1820, remained unpublished for decades and have been largely overlooked by both performers and music scholars. These sonatas represent a unique synthesis of Classical and Romantic elements, yet their potential remains untapped in contemporary piano practice. This study examines how contemporary interpretations breathe life into these compositions and contribute to their inclusion in today’s repertoire. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The study seeks to provide a genre and stylistic analysis of Mendelssohn’s little-known early piano sonatas, with a focus on their structural and interpretative peculiarities and to identify the conceptual differences in their reading by contemporary performers Roberto Prosseda and Ana-Maria Markovina, who gifted them a “new life” in the artistic space of the 21st century. F. Mendelssohn’s musical legacy has been the subject of numerous studies (Walshaw, 2017; Veremyova, 2009; Todd, 2004, 2011 etc.), with emphasizing his lyrical style, structural clarity and expressiveness of his music. While his major piano works are well-documented, the early Sonatas such as a-moll MWV U 8, c-moll MWV U 13, 15, 17, e-moll MWV U 19, and f-moll MWV U 23 remain underexplored. This study is the first within Ukrainian musicological discourse to systematically analyze the early Mendelssohn ’s piano sonatas . It sheds light on the conceptual and stylistic innovations presented in these works and evaluates the interpretative strategies of modern pianists. The contribution by R. Prosseda and A.-M. Markovina, who have recorded the complete collection of the composer’s piano works, underscore the sonatas’ artistic significance and serve as critical sources for this research. The research employs genre-stylistic analysis to explore the interaction of Classical and Romantic elements, functional-structural analysis to investigate the organization and hierarchy of musical ideas, performance analysis to address technical and interpretative challenges, and comparative analysis to reveal the specifics of the renditions by Prosseda and Markovina. Research results. It is concluded that in his early piano sonatas the composer harmoniously combined the traditions of the genre and the innovation of its reading, structural classicist thinking with romantic intonation imagery. The intonation and dramaturgical analysis of the works testifies to the gradual development of F. Mendelssohn’s style from imitation of Baroque models and the Viennese classics’s traditions to innovative searches of the Romantic era. Consideration of the performances of F. Mendelssohn’s Piano Sonatas reveals in them the dialectical interaction of the images of “homo rationalis” and “homo emotionalis” as a reflection of the Apollonian and Dionysian life-creating principles. The versions of the Sonatas performed by A.-M. Markovina and R. Prosseda reveal both of these aspects and provide a “new chance” for these works, contributing to their popularization in the modern repertoire of pianists. Conclusion. Mendelssohn’s early Piano Sonatas are invaluable for understanding the evolution of the piano sonata genre in the early 19th century. Their revival by contemporary pianists underscores their artistic and pedagogical significance. The research results testifying the need for these works to be integrated into mainstream piano repertoire that will be ensuring them a rightful place in music history.
Source: Aspects of Historical Musicology
Author: Alina Martianova
Language: English
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4409570832