To the Albert Hall on Friday for the all-Mendelssohn PROM concert given by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.
Mendelssohn has suffered through most of my lifetime for the mistaken belief that he was a genius as a child and teenager, but somehow lost it all as an adult. How wrong this is.
Certainly he was the most brilliant composer from a young age, even out-performing Mozart in childhood. But, as this concert showed so clearly, he retained his talent well into adulthood.
On Friday we were given two overtures – “Ruy Blas” and the more rarely performed “The Fair Melusine” – the Violin Concerto which the great fiddler Joachim described as “the heart’s jewel”, and his fifth symphony, the “Reformation". All of them were written in adulthood with an evolved, grown-up aesthetic, but no signs of decline.
So how did this reputation grow up? Probably it was the result of dreary, overblown performances. None of that was on view on Friday from the scintillating Leipzigers.
And how good to see a young Sydneysider, Tahlia Petrosian, among the violas. Is she the first Australian to play in that great orchestra since the teenage Alfred Hill in late 1880s?
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