Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT - ONLY NOT IN THAT ORDER

s ? is it? Is it reflected in the world of music? Well, if you want die short answer, yes. Of course, if you want the long answer, then: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. In fact, tell you what: let me go into a little more detail, in just a moment. But first, I want to keep you posted on two old friends. Mendelssohn is the first, and the strange netherworld that is opera the second.

Mendelssohn first. If you can imagine that Roger Hargreaves had written the history of classical music, then, for example, Handel would be Mr Greedy. Schoenberg might be Mr Topsy-Turvy, and maybe Wagner could be Mr Bossy. Whatever. Some of them are open to discussion. One that isn't in question, though, is Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn, without a shadow of a doubt, is Mr Happy. His music is rarely, if ever, too taxing. It's almost always beautiful, or, if not beautiful, chipper, or if not chipper, then relaxed. The world according to Felix - and remember, his name even means 'happy'. Never really wanted for money, was quite happily married, was recognized as a great composer while he was still alive - something that doesn't always happen - and generally was the sort of person who took his library books back and 'rallied round'.

Anyway, the reason I want to catch up with Mendelssohn relates to the fragment of paper that was recently uncovered during an exhibition entitled 'More than just a Big Circle and a Line Down -Composers and their Minims' at the University of Baaden Blackschiep. It appears to be a scrap of the minutes of a meeting, attended by FM-B, during the latter half of 1832. Chairman spoke: "This week we have a new member of Bachaholics Anonymous, and his name is

Felix.' General murmurs. Chairman spoke again: 'Hello, Felix. Is there anything youd like to tell us?' More general murmuring and chairman calls for quiet. Chairman spoke: 'Felix?' Murmurs die down. FM-B speaks. 'Hello. My name is… is Felix, and, well, I love the music of Bach. I am a Bachaholic. THERE!' Murmurs from crowd. Chairman spoke: 'Well done Felix That's the first step!' Yes, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is about to do what no one has been able to do for almost a hundred years, and that is to single-handedly start a Bach revival.

Despite the fact that we take Bach very much for granted these days, as one of the staple parts of the classical music diet, it was not always thus. Bach's output had been more or less forgotten after he'd died in 1750, and it was going to take someone with a fortunate mix of passion and clout to make people sit up and take notice of it again. Such a man was FM-B. He was, remember, a 'great composer' in his own lifetime. He was, also, the boss of a music academy, the Berlin Singakademie. Under his guidance, the academy had put on, just two years ago, the first performance in recent memory of Bach's St Matthew Passion. Combined with a significant championing of the great man's music, this was enough to relight the Bach fire, a fire that has not gone out to this day.

Around the same time he embarked on his love affair with Johann Sebastian, he also embarked on a second love affair to run alongside it, namely a love of Britain. By 1831, he'd made the first of a long line of trips to the land of the knotted hankie, and was being hailed as a bit of a celeb.

He took in Scodand, and came over all Celtic, not only with a Scottish Symphony but also with a piece of 'programme music' too, as it was known - that is, music with an unspoken story or picture attached, which the composer is trying to depict in the music. It was an overture called The Hebrides, or Fingal's Hohle {Fingal's Cave), and was prompted by an actual excursion to the cave itself in 1829.

Mendelssohn was evidendy totally overwhelmed by Scodand, and the small Hebridean island of Staffa in particular. It's said that he wrote down the opening bars of his now famous overture the day before his trip to Staffa, and that it was some time before he eventually gave the overture he had written the name 'Fingal's Cave'. Indeed, despite the romantic notion that you 'can hear the waves lapping in the cave', it probably wasn't quite as hunky-dory as that. There's even a case for arguing that Mendelssohn would have liked to get Staffa out of his mind. Indeed, his travelling companion in Scodand, one Carl Klingemann - reported that Mendelssohn 'is on better terms with the sea as a composer than he is as an individual or a stomach.' Mendelssohn himself wrote, from the comfort of dry land some days later, 'How much has happened since my last letter and this! The most fearful sickness, Staffa, scenery, travels and people…' So, you see. Next time you're waiting for lights to die down in a concert featuring the Hebrides overture, and the smartarse next to you offers to point out the musical depiction of 'the waves lapping gently and ever, so beautifully into the cave', just tell them: 'Actually, you're mistaken. I'm pretty sure that's meant to portray Mendelssohn with his head down the loo, doing a Technicolor yawn.' I'm sure they'll thank you for it. Whatever the reality of the situation, Mendelssohn managed to produce a work that simply reeks of Scotiand - it's music with a kilt on, music that says 'CELTIC, music that says 'I'll never win the World Cup.'