COMPOSERS: Mendelssohn
LABELS: Capriccio
WORKS: Ödipus
PERFORMER: Speakers, René Pape (bass), Berlin Radio Choir, Carl Maria von Weber Men’s Choir, Berlin RSO/Stefan Soltesz
CATALOGUE NO: 10 393 DDD
This curiosity by Mendelssohn dates from 1845, a year after the Violin Concerto, two after the incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and two before the composer’s death. If in those works Mendelssohn’s muse was smiling on him, in this incidental music to Sophocles’s Oedipus at Colonus she sounds as weary as Mendelssohn was, towards the end of a life of overwork and exhausting travel. Committed performances all round will convince only the Mendelssohn faithful. Christopher Wood
Mendelssohn: Ödipus
This curiosity by Mendelssohn dates from 1845, a year after the Violin Concerto, two after the incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and two before the composer’s death. If in those works Mendelssohn’s muse was smiling on him, in this incidental music to Sophocles’s Oedipus at Colonus she sounds as weary as Mendelssohn was, towards the end of a life of overwork and exhausting travel. Committed performances all round will convince only the Mendelssohn faithful. Christopher Wood
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:32 pm