A new look
These pioneering Urtext editions are the first scholarly critical publications of Mendelssohn’s great concert overtures. Many of his most frequently performed works belong to this group.
»Had Mendelssohn only titled his one movement orchestral works 'Symphonic Poems', which Liszt later coined, he would be celebrated today as the creator of program music and thus be situated at the beginning of a new period rather than the end of an old one. Mendelssohn would then be referred to as the 'first modern' instead of the 'last classic'«. (Felix Weingartner on Mendelssohn, 1898).
The eminent English conductor and scholar Christopher Hogwood selected seven overtures which span a very fruitful creative period for Mendelssohn, beginning with the Overture for Winds (1824) and ending with Ruy Blas (1839).
Nearly all of these compositions are programmatic: Many were written in response to literary impressions or their presentation on the stage such as Shakespeare’s »A Midsummer Night’s Dream«, Hugo’s »Ruy Blas«, Goethe’s »Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt« or Grillparzer’s »Die schöne Melusine« and others reflect visual impressions as »Die Hebriden« (Fingals Höhle). At least three of these works were assembled and published during his lifetime as a set (»Hebriden«, »Sommernachtstraum« and »Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt«).