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Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
The Hebrides, Op. 26 (“Fingal’s Cave”)
The romanticism of the nineteenth century was a complex movement. There are
many different definitions of romanticism, not all of which can be viewed in a positive
light, which was perhaps best summed up by Goethe when he said, “Classicism is health,
Romanticism is sickness.” Romanticism was indeed a very self-conscious movement
tied to the regeneration of individual life. Foremost in the romantic way of thought was
the infinite power of the individual imagination. The world as I see it—this is pure
romanticism, as is the idea that there is an infinite world in each of us. This was the
aesthetic environment in which Felix Mendelssohn lived, and in which he composed his
overture, The Hebrides, in the early 1830s.
Nature was one of the many fascinations revered by artists of the romantic era.
Nineteenth-century artists felt that they should perceive what an element of nature was
like and then present their own image of it. Their desire was to be “as one” with nature
and then render an artistic impression of their experience. So it was that in August of
1829 Mendelssohn, during a tour of Scotland, visited the Hebrides Islands off the
Scottish coast. Mendelssohn and a traveling companion went out in a boat and
confronted Fingal’s Cave, a tremendous pile of rock resembling the ruin of a gothic
cathedral on the isolated island of Staffa. Fingal’s Cave was virtually a pilgrimage site
for romantic artists and it was the subject of numerous paintings and literary
descriptions during the nineteenth century. Mendelssohn and his companion braved
sea-sickness and sogginess to row their little boat directly into the cave. Mendelssohn
was deeply impressed by what he saw and later that day wrote a letter to his sister,
Fanny, in which he said “That you might understand how deeply the Hebrides have

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affected me, the following came into my mind here.” Enclosed with the letter was a
sketch of the overture’s opening theme. Mendelssohn continued to work on the
overture as he traveled throughout Europe, eventually completing it the following year
in Rome. When it was performed in London in1832, the English critics hailed him as a
“second Handel,” and no lesser critics than Richard Wagner and Robert Schumann
praised the work as a masterpiece.
Mendelssohn was an educated composer who was interested in the larger world.
He realized that the sea had many faces, both beautiful and sublime aspects, and was
more than just a body of water. The sea also possessed a great sense of mystery—things
that could not be fathomed. In depicting all of this, Mendelssohn used orchestral color
to create a vivid sense of discovery. He had at his disposal a much wider orchestral
range than did Handel when he composed his Water Music, and he employed this
resource with delicate nuance to create a softly blurred image rather than literal color.
For spatial effects, Mendelssohn utilized the contrast of high winds with low strings.
The overture opens with these same widely spaced winds and strings in a setting of
turbulent sixteenth notes, creating a pervasive sense of mystery at the outset through
the use of frequent key changes. The feeling is one of the open air sea. Following the
dictates of sonata-allegro form, a second area is presented in which the theme becomes
broad and lyrical in D Major. At the end of the exposition, the beautiful theme builds to
a sweeping climax. In the development section, however, it appears that the bottom
falls out. The winds are in the middle, with the cellos and basses sinking to the depths
and the high strings floating to the top. Beauty takes over in the middle of the
development, which is simplified and calmer, before yet another shift to the mysterious
with a darker, minor tonality. The music grows increasingly tense, obviously leading the

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listener somewhere—perhaps into the raging sea. All of this turmoil leads to the
recapitulation, with the return of the opening “mystery” theme, now made almost
prayer-like by subtle changes in orchestration. The second area theme becomes even
more serene with yet more delicate orchestration, first heard in the solo clarinet, then
becoming a duet. In the coda, the sea again asserts its power. The themes are
fragmented and reworked with the tension of added dissonance before enigmatically
shifting back to the opening atmosphere of mystery for the conclusion.
Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)
Symphony No. 3, Opus 27, Sinfonia Espansiva
“Music is life,” said Carl Nielsen. The Danish composer believed that music and
art could open up a greater human awareness. How Carl Nielsen came to think along
these lines, and to write some of the twentieth century’s greatest symphonies, is a
mystery. Born to a peasant family on the Danish island of Funen, there would seem to
be nothing in Nielsen’s background to prepare him to write music of such visionary
compass and emotional power. However, Nielsen himself later credited the impact of
his rural adolescence on his compositional style.
Nielsen’s musical explorations began as a child of three, when he discovered that
logs in the woodpile produced varying pitches according to their thickness and length.
His father, a house painter by trade, played the fiddle and cornet. His mother sang, as
did most of his eleven brothers and sisters. Young Carl was six and making good
headway on the violin when he first laid eyes on the piano. It was a transforming
moment for him. Instead of looking for the notes, as on the violin, the piano laid them

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all out before him “in long shining rows before my very eyes. I could not only hear them
but see them, and I made one big discovery after another.”
It was, however, the violin that helped Nielsen make his way in the music world,
enabling him to gain entry into the Copenhagen Conservatory in 1884 at the age of 19.
By 1889, Nielsen was earning a living as second violinist in the Royal Chapel Orchestra.
While he aspired to a much greater goal than that of orchestral violinist, this was a post
that provided his essential income for sixteen years. During this time he began
establishing his reputation as a composer. His First Symphony was composed between
1890 and 1893, and we know from Nielsen’s writings that he was particularly influenced
by the music of Brahms during this time. This symphony set a standard for Nielsen’s
art, marking him as Denmark’s most important musical name. The Second Symphony
was completed just ten years later and the Third almost ten years after that, having been
composed between the years 1910 and 1911. At its 1912 premiere, the Third Symphony
was hailed by critics as “the first wholly and utterly ripe apple from his tree.” Nielsen
himself conducted the premier on 28 February 1912 with the Royal Danish Orchestra in
Copenhagen. The work quickly gained recognition outside of Denmark, with
triumphant performances in Amsterdam in 1912, and in Stuttgart, Stockholm, and
Helsinki during the following year.
The Third Symphony stands as the first great monument to Nielsen’s aesthetic
belief that music could lead mankind to greater awareness. By the time of its
composition, Nielsen had altered his views somewhat to acknowledge that music must
be allowed to be music, with awareness growing from immersion in the music. The
symphony’s title, Espansiva, was given by Nielsen after the premiere, taken from the
opening movement, “Allegro espansivo.” This is not a romantic title but an indicator of

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what the symphony achieves on an aesthetic level: an outward development of the
mind’s capacity and the expansion of life that evolves from it. In the Third Symphony,
Nielsen’s realization that he is at once part of, dependent upon, and of value to the
common folk comes to bear, and in his music he achieves a sense of solidarity with the
people.
The music of the opening movement dares one not to listen. It begins with a
series of hammer strikes, fierce and gathering in speed. The listener is then swept up in
a musical landscape of breathtaking originality. Musically, Nielsen achieved his aims
with a harmonic treatment that develops both the music and the listener’s ear through
rising terraces of keys. Throughout the movement, the tonality expands by moving to
the remotest possible distance from a given key. The rhythmic energy of the movement
helps to thrust the music through its vast harmonic ranges. Nielsen himself said of the
first movement, “(It) was meant as a gust of energy and life affirmation blown out into
the wide world, which we human beings would not only like to get to know in all its
multiplicity of activities, but also to conquer to make our own.”
The second movement shifts to a more pastoral mood, characterized by an almost
supernatural stillness. Nielsen noted, “The second movement is the absolute opposite
(of the first): the purest idyll, and when the human voices are heard at last, it is only to
underscore the peaceful mood that one could imagine in Paradise before the Fall of our
First Parents, Adam and Eve.” Hymn-like string writing contrasts with filigree wind
counterpoint. The eventual entrance of two wordless human voices indeed evokes a
primeval moment.
Nielsen described his third movement as “…a thing that cannot really be
described, because both good and evil are manifested without any real settling of the

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issue.” He also called this movement the “heart” of the symphony. This movement is a
quasi-scherzo, with spirited and multicolored writing in which orchestral sections and
individual instruments are highlighted to a far greater degree than the preceding
movements. Thematic material is continually developed through repetition and
ornamentation, resulting in a delightfully varied movement of delicacy and precision
that draws to a quiet close.
The Finale returns to the chromatic inventiveness and grandeur of the
symphony’s opening. Despite its splendid scale, there is no pompousness here but
rather a stately dignity. There is a folk-like simplicity to the movement, best heard in
the floating second theme introduced by the woodwinds. According to Nielsen, the
Finale “…is perfectly straightforward: a hymn to work and the healthy activity of
everyday life, but a certain expansive happiness about being able to participate in the
work of life and the day and to see activity and ability manifested on all sides around
us.”
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, “Eroica”
The years 1802 to 1810 have often been dubbed Beethoven’s heroic decade.
When one considers the events in Beethoven’s life leading up to that time, it was a truly
heroic period indeed. In 1802 Beethoven, then thirty-one years old, faced a profound
personal crisis: he was forced to acknowledge the fact that he was going deaf. During
the summer of 1802 his despair plunged to great depths. While staying at the country
retreat of Heiligenstadt just outside of Vienna, he wrote a long letter to his brothers
explaining his miserable state of mind. “For me there can be no pleasure in human

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society, no intelligent conversation, no mutual confidences. I must live like an outcast.”
Beethoven contemplated suicide but ultimately made the decision to live for his art,
stating, “It seemed impossible to leave the world before I had accomplished all that I
was destined to do.” The letter, known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament,” was found
among his effects after his death. It was never sent.
The next few years were the most productive ones of his life. During this time
Beethoven composed the third through eighth symphonies, the final two piano
concertos, the violin concerto, the opera Fidelio, and the “Razumovsky” string quartets.
In Beethoven’s writings from this period there is an increasing focus on the ideals of
human dignity, freedom, and heroism. His musical compositions push the boundaries
of classical form, sometimes transcending it entirely. Beethoven was setting a new
standard for composers of large-scale works in the nineteenth century and beyond, a
standard that would both intimidate and inspire. This standard was exemplified in his
third symphony, known as the Eroica, which was composed in 1803-4. Heroic even in
its physical proportions, this was the longest and most complex symphony written up to
that time. It was also unprecedented in its rhythmic energy, in its developmental
treatment of thematic material, and in its protracted construction of powerful climaxes.
Struggle and triumph are the heroic principles central to this symphony. This is
achieved not in a programmatic sense but with a style that conveys a clear sense of valor
and courage. Beethoven achieves this at the outset by breaking the mold of symphonic
form. He swiftly dispenses with the slow introduction typical of late classical
symphonies by substituting two brusque forte chords. These give way at once to the
opening theme, played by the cellos and basses. This seems to outline a fairly
conventional tonal center but unexpected harmonic changes create a sense of unease

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and volatility almost straight away. After an extended transition, a second theme
emerges, heard first in the oboes and clarinets and then immediately varied by the
strings. The exposition culminates in a massive codetta, which presents even more new
melodic material. The development continues with epic proportions and style as
Beethoven explores this wealth of thematic material. The development section alone is
longer than many opening symphonic movements of the era. After a climax of roaring
dissonances, a new and melancholy theme is heard in the oboe. With the recapitulation
of all themes, the movement ends with an immense coda in which development of the
thematic material continues.
The second movement has a descriptive title, Marcia funebre, which would have
been instantly familiar to Beethoven’s contemporary audiences. It is modeled after the
grand dirges that were played at the funerals of heroes of the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic wars. Here we have a somber rondo, characterized by a slow tempo, minor
key, simulations of drum rolls, and pervasive dotted rhythms characteristic of
Republican funeral music. A contrasting middle section in the major mode injects a
brief interlude of hope, only to give way to the return of the main theme. The movement
closes with a bleak, ghostly coda.
A lightning-fast third movement, Scherzo: Allegro vivace, replaces the minuet
typically found in the symphonies of Beethoven’s contemporaries. No courtly grace
here, the third movement is all perpetual motion in the string parts and mischievous
tunefulness in the woodwinds. This sets the stage for the finale (Allegro molto). There
is an outraged flurry in the strings, racing to a dead stop on a series of dominant chords.
A simple bass line is heard pizzicato in the strings and then moves through progressively
more intricate variations, creating an escalating sense of mystery until the “real” melody

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finally appears after some seventy-five measures. Combining elements of theme-and-
variations and rondo form, the fourth movement shapes a dynamic balance to the
opening movement.
The story of the original dedication of the third symphony is well known.
Beethoven had long followed the career of Napoleon Bonaparte with keen interest. He
had originally titled the symphony “Bonaparte” in deference to Napoleon’s Republican
ideals. However, on learning that Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor, Beethoven
tore up the dedication page in disgust. The first published edition of the work notes
simply that the work was composed “…to celebrate the memory of a great man.”
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67
There can be little question that the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
contain the most famous symphonic theme ever composed. The simple rhythm, three
short notes and one long, somehow constitutes a theme of astonishing power that has
fascinated listeners throughout history. In Beethoven’s hands, this seemingly
straightforward phrase launches the most violent symphonic opening ever heard at the
time of its premiere and it was some eighty years more before audiences would
encounter another symphonic opening of comparable ferocity in the Mahler Second
Symphony. In addition to its striking opening, the Fifth Symphony was ground-
breaking in a number of ways. Here we find the first use of the trombone in a
symphonic setting, variations built on double themes, two movements joined together,
the reprise of an earlier passage in the finale, and, most significantly, a single theme that
fuses together the entire work.

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The initial reaction to the Fifth Symphony was considerably less favorable than
that of modern listeners. Beethoven began sketching the symphony in 1804,
immediately after finishing the Eroica. The bulk of the composition, however, was done
in 1807 and the work was finally completed early in 1808. The first performance of the
Fifth Symphony took place in Vienna on December 22, 1808. This was the famous
concert at the Theater an der Wien in which the audience also heard the premieres of
Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony and the Choral Fantasy, the first public performance of the
Fourth Piano Concerto, several movements from the Mass in C major, and the concert
aria “Ah! Perfido.” It was an exceedingly long concert even by nineteenth-century
standards, and by the time the Fifth Symphony was performed the audience was most
likely too weary and too cold, as the hall was unheated, to give the symphony its due.
One concert attendee later noted, “There we sat from 6:30 until 10:30 in the most bitter
cold, and found by experience that one might have too much even of a good thing.”
Furthermore, the performance was little more than a sight-reading exercise as
Beethoven had been able to manage only one rehearsal of the unfamiliar and difficult
music with a pick-up ensemble, with the end result being a less than sparkling execution
of the music. Beethoven prevailed, however, and, with a few revisions following the
premier, so did his Fifth Symphony. The work has never lost its attraction. No less of
an expert than Robert Schumann predicted as much, noting that “this symphony
invariably wields its power over men of every age like those great phenomena of
nature…. This symphony, too, will be heard in future centuries, nay, as long as music
and the world exist.”
The opening movement is filled with a theatrical drama of contrasts. There is the
urgency of the initial eighth notes, followed by the portentous freezing of motion in the

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sustained notes. The harmonic treatment as well tosses the listener into the air by
starting on the stronger fifth and ending on the weaker third, not clearly defining the
key and making it apparent that something is amiss. The movement then proceeds as a
single-minded development of the opening theme, an unrelenting storm of musical
conflict and energy in which even the lyrical second theme is punctuated by the
obstinate “three shorts and a long” as Beethoven explores every aspect of his opening
motive. Periodically the storm is stalled by echoes of the two long notes from the
opening, most notably in the recapitulation, where a plaintively expressive oboe cadenza
completely immobilizes the action. The movement concludes with an extended coda
that explores even newer depths of drama and power in the musical material.
The second movement is a rather distant cousin of the theme and variations often
found in classical symphonies. This set of variations on one of Beethoven’s “hymnic”
themes is actually based on two different musical ideas, each of which is varied
separately before trailing off into a free improvisation, giving the movement a
seductively contemplative quality.
Drama returns in the third movement, which is a scherzo based on a rocket
theme. The basic motive appears in the horns. The trio changes key and mood, with
the lower strings launching a comical theme that is in turn played by the violas, second
violins, and then first violins, a section described by Berlioz as the “gambols of a
frolicsome elephant.” The scherzo theme returns, made mysterious by the use of
pizzicato strings. Ultimately, the motive is condensed to its most basic element, tapped
out in a single note on the tympani, but the scherzo is never completed. Beethoven
instead maneuvers its final cadence into a subterranean passageway of thumping drums
and fragments of melody, finally emerging in the brilliant sunlight of C major,

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punctuated by the appearance of trombones, piccolo, and contrabassoon. The finale
proceeds with martial triumph until Beethoven slows the excitement with a last
appearance of the scherzo theme before building to a final presto. The tonic chord is
thrown repeatedly like a thunderbolt, driving the orchestra to its final unison and the
glorious conclusion of the Fifth Symphony.
Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
Danzas Españolas, Op. 12
Enrique Granados, born July 27, 1867 in Lérida, is primarily remembered today
for his piano works. He received both piano and composition lessons at a young age and
was a composition student of the great Spanish composer and historian, Felipe Pedrell.
In 1887 Granados left for Paris to study piano. He had originally planned to attend the
Paris Conservatory, but a bout with typhoid fever made it impossible for him to take the
entrance exams, and by the time he recovered he was past the age limit for admission.
Granados then elected to study privately with Charles de Bériot, whose class included a
young Maurice Ravel. After two years in Paris, marked by unsuccessful attempts to
interest French publishers in his music, Granados returned to Barcelona in 1889.
Upon his return to Spain, Granados negotiated the publication of his Doce
danzas españolas with a Barcelona publisher. Published individually in the early 1890s,
these were the first works for which Granados received international attention. While it
appears that many of the Danzas españolas were conceived in Paris, Granados the
composer seems to have been minimally affected by the modern French idiom. Today
Granados is widely acknowledged as a composer of Spanish-flavored works. His mature

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style can be generally characterized by a late-romantic predilection for meandering
chromaticism, virtuosic flourishes, and thematic recollection.
The Doce danzas españolas is a collection of twelve dances, written in four sets of
three between 1892 and 1900. These pieces blend elements of Spanish nationalism
with romantic piano technique. All twelve pieces feature melodic invention over
contrapuntal development, energetic rhythms, innovative modulations, and the
alterations of scale steps and harmonic progressions that give music a native Spanish
essence. Most of the dances shift freely between major and minor keys and are in triple
meter with a three-part ABA construction. The most famous of the set is Dance No. 5,
Andaluza, which brings to mind the guitar, the quintessential Spanish instrument, with
the piquant character of its melody and the picking and strumming effects in the bass.
The Danzas españolas proved to be among Granados’s most popular works and
he performed them frequently. Several of the pieces were eventually orchestrated.
Apparently the first orchestration was by Garcia Farià, who presented three
orchestrated Danzas on April 10, 1892 in a concert by the Perez Cabrero Orchestra at
the Teatre Liric in Barcelona. The selections performed here were arranged by Joan
Lamote de Grignon, a contemporary of Granados who was a well-known Catalan
composer and the founder of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra.
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Romance in C Major, Op. 42
A violinist, composer, and conductor, Jean Sibelius was also a passionate
nationalist whose music evoked the spirit of Finland during the time that the country
broke away from Sweden and Russia. Sibelius was at the forefront of a musical

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renaissance in his native land, developing a highly idiosyncratic idiom inspired by the
musical characteristics of his native culture. The musical output of Sibelius was vast,
encompassing a variety of forms. His international reputation rests primarily on the
large symphonic works: seven symphonies and various tone poems.
Born to a Swedish-speaking family, Sibelius was raised by his mother and
grandmother after his father, a physician, died of cholera. A promising violinist,
Sibelius was composing by the age of ten. From an early age, he was influenced by the
Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. This, linked to an intense response to landscape
and nature, provided the momentum for his work.
Sibelius originally intended to study law but abandoned it in favor of music. He
studied first in Helsinki, then in Berlin and Vienna. He returned to Finland in 1891. In
1897, the Finnish government granted him a state pension so that he could devote all of
his time to composing. Finnish myths and folk tales had a strong effect on the themes
he chose for his music and, while Sibelius never used actual folk tunes, many of his
works may be called distinctively Finnish. “I love the mysterious sounds of the fields
and forests, water and mountains,” wrote Sibelius. “It pleases me greatly to be called a
poet of nature, for nature has truly been the book of books for me.” The great genius of
Sibelius lay in translating his own love of his country—the forests and lakes as well as
the heroic elements of traditional literature—into music. These national idioms so
infuse his musical language that the listener intuitively perceives the spirit of Finland.
The Romance in C, Op. 42, for strings dates from 1904 and was composed for a
spring concert in Turku. Sibelius himself conducted that first performance, dedicating
the piece to the orchestral conductor in Turku, José Eibenschütz. The piece also
appeared that April on concert programs in Vaasa in aid of the Helsinki orchestra’s

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pension fund. The Romance was composed during a particularly happy time in
Sibelius’s life and, perhaps as a result, it is an appealing piece that has enjoyed a well-
deserved popularity. Here one finds the elegiac aspects of Sibelius’s style, enriched by a
plethora of thematic invention. The recitative quality of the opening bars is marked by
tonal ambiguity, leading to heightened tension as the varied inflections of the
introductory section build to a cadential phrase that collects itself again and again for its
final chord and then leaves that final chord unsounded. Instead, the music submerges
itself in a canonic passage based on the opening phrase and then progresses into the
middle section. Here one finds marked contrast to the opening bars, with an
expansively swinging chant that ultimately breaks off and plunges back into the canonic
passage, now inverted. This progresses to an impassioned, broadened restatement of
the introductory bars, followed by a steadily calming recapitulation of the entire first
section, the cadential phrase of which finally attains its tonic chord. A brief coda ensues,
in which the cellos imitate the opening passage against sustained chords for a muted
pianissimo ending.