Mendelssohns Virtuosität. Anmerkungen zu den Liedern ohne Worte
Mendelssohn's Virtuosity. Notes on the Songs without Words

Summary/Abstract: August Wilhelm Ambrose considers Felix Mendelssohn a true representative of XIXth Century modernity, a term politically defined by the July revolution, aesthetically by the “end of art”, and in music by a new determination of the role of artists against the background of Saint-Simonism. Mendelssohn is the one able to surpass the classic conflict between the conservatives and the „Norddeutschen”. The german composer plays such a role, making a synthesis between absolute and poetic music. For Ambrose, the conflict between those two parties is a fatal symptom of a blockage in the music of the XIXth Century. The Mendelssohn problem is worth studying for the reason of what may be music when it does not lead to a mutual cancellation conflict of internal rationality and external world report. On the other hand, the dichotomy between the intrinsic musical and the external dimensions related to music, always fatal in the Ambrose`s perspective, appear more and more in the discussion about music. As the compositional practice follows the same line, Mendelssohn’s work can be understood as criticizing the polar structure in the same way Ambrose’s bipolar argument did. As Robert Schumann says, Mendelssohn “best understood and was the first to reconcile” the contradictions of his era. The understanding and reconciliation of the opposite elements on the musical and structural levels can be demonstrated with some of his Songs without words. His compositions show how

• Details
• Contents