Was Mendelssohn necessary for Wagner?

[richardfinegold]

I’ve reread Wagner’s “Judaism In Music” recently. Leaving aside all of the objectionable blather, which isn’t the point that I want to discuss here, from a Musical standpoint Wagner spends a considerable amount of time damning Mendelssohn. His argument seems to be that FM wasn’t a truly original Composer, but one that aped Bach and Beethoven, producing a watered down version of both. Wagner states the last real great German Composer (he implies, before himself) was Beethoven.
I realize that from an evolutionary standpoint, Music doesn’t necessarily progress in a straight line.
Chopin, for example, stated he had little use for Beethoven and that Mozart and Italian bel canto Opera were more important to him. I had always thought however that the first Generation Of Romantic Composers (roughly, Mendelssohn,Schumann,Berlioz, Weber, Bellini and Rossini) had particularly in the areas of Harmony and Melody made such innovations that they paved the way for the later generations of Romanticists.
Listening to Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony yesterday I thought I detected little bits, almost embryonic Wagnerian leitmotifs, in the various movements that were all gathered up, thrillingly, in the finale. Wagner would perhaps counter that Beethoven actually did this in the 5th Symphony, where the initial 4 note theme reappears in several guises in all the movements , but it feels very different in the Scottish Symphony.
At any rate Wagner seems to dismiss FM and doesn’t seem to cite anyone after Beethoven (conspicuously omitting his own Father in Law?) as being important until he comes along, apparently springing into the world, Athena like, from the head of Beethoven. My question is therefore were the earlier Romantics indeed a necessary antecedent for Wagner to appear?

[MrGongGong]

Mendelssohn is never "necessary" IMV (apart from the Octet)

[Petrushka]

I've pointed this out before and can't anywhere that anyone else has ever spotted it but there is what seems to me to be a quote from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream music at the very opening of the Prelude to Act 3 of Die Meistersinger. It is just a short transitionary phrase in the MND Entr'acte but interesting because both are set in the very same evening.

27' 11'' into this clip from the LSO/Previn recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUKj6tdXtS0

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I admire your stamina, but don't envy you getting through that "essay", rfg - I tried to a few times in the '80s but could never stomach the bile of the foul piece.

Pet's interesting illustration from MSND shows a possible connection, and I seem to remember that there is some Mendelssohnian "fairy" Music in Die Feen (I haven't heard that since the '80s, either, so can't give exact quotations) - and there's the "Dresden Amen" in FM's Reformation and RW's Parsifal, though that might be used as evidence to show how different are the two composers' outlooks on the Art. Much more of a necessary influence was another Jewish composer , Meyerbeer, who helped Wagner get work in Paris, and whose influence on Rienzi is inescapable. It was a style of operatic writing and thinking that Wagner quickly moved away from - but the "phase" was essential to his development.

Of non-Jewish (or Jewish-descendent) composers, Berlioz was also necessary to the development of Wagner's Musical language - Tristan without the harmonic precedence of Romeo would sound very different. Eine Faust Overture is a melding of Schumann concert overture and Liszt symphonic poem. Wagner needed to reinvent his own history in order to maintain his (rightful) place as Beethoven's "heir" - but his methods of discrediting others in order to do so, his refusal to accept that he was not the sole inheritor; these are despicable.

[ahinton]

Chopin, for example, stated he had little use for Beethoven and that Mozart and Italian bel canto Opera were more important to him.

Inmportant as those two phenomena indeed were to him, I think it important to take what composers - even those of the order of Chopin - say with a pinch of salt on occasion; consider the quasi trillo (B-C#) passages towards the close of Chopin's Scherzo No. 4 in E major and one of the variations in the finale of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30, Op. 109 in the same key and then contemplate how much use the former had for the latter!...

[richardfinegold]

I admire your stamina, but don't envy you getting through that "essay", rfg - I tried to a few times in the '80s but could never stomach the bile of the foul piece.

Pet's interesting illustration from MSND shows a possible connection, and I seem to remember that there is some Mendelssohnian "fairy" Music in Die Feen (I haven't heard that since the '80s, either, so can't give exact quotations) - and there's the "Dresden Amen" in FM's Reformation and RW's Parsifal, though that might be used as evidence to show how different are the two composers' outlooks on the Art. Much more of a necessary influence was another Jewish composer , Meyerbeer, who helped Wagner get work in Paris, and whose influence on Rienzi is inescapable. It was a style of operatic writing and thinking that Wagner quickly moved away from - but the "phase" was essential to his development.

Of non-Jewish (or Jewish-descendent) composers, Berlioz was also necessary to the development of Wagner's Musical language - Tristan without the harmonic precedence of Romeo would sound very different. Eine Faust Overture is a melding of Schumann concert overture and Liszt symphonic poem. Wagner needed to reinvent his own history in order to maintain his (rightful) place as Beethoven's "heir" - but his methods of discrediting others in order to do so, his refusal to accept that he was not the sole inheritor; these are despicable.

Wagner also dedicates a lot space to attacking Meyerbeer. I am unfamiliar with Meyerbeer’s music and therefore not able place his arguments in context, but the vehemence of the attacks certainly had a ring of an Artist who is disowning an influence from his earlier years

[LeMartinPecheur]

I wonder if any of RW's dislike of Mendelssohn was prompted by the latter's absolutely naked stealings from the RW's great god LvB, in his early works anyway. First time I heard FM's piano sonata as recorded by Murray Perahia, I nearly fell off my horse laughing Some of the early quartets are nearly as bad.

I do quite like a lot of later FM though, and take my hat off to early efforts like the Octet and MSND ov, though he's not anywhere near my Top 30 Composers to save when the LMP disc storage catches fire

[jayne lee wilson]

I wonder if any of RW's dislike of Mendelssohn was prompted by the latter's absolutely naked stealings from the RW's great god LvB, in his early works anyway. First time I heard FM's piano sonata as recorded by Murray Perahia, I nearly fell off my horse laughing Some of the early quartets are nearly as bad.

I do quite like a lot of later FM though, and take my hat off to early efforts like the Octet and MSND ov, though he's not anywhere near my Top 30 Composers to save when the LMP disc storage catches fire

"Some of the early quartets are nearly as bad.."?! (Pass us the brandy, Edge my fellow Mendelssohnian, as if I haven't had enough excitement for one day).

Do you really want to get me started on defending Mendelssohn, whom I worship as one of my all-time musical Gods?
Those early Quartets (I presume you refer to Op.12 & Op.13) are highly original rapprochements with that late-quartet Beethovenian inheritance, with startlingly precocious, confident and innovative use of cyclical sonata-forms....
They also happen to be supremely memorable, lovable masterpieces, entirely in Mendelssohn's own so beautiful voice. Concise too with scarce a bar wasted. (Desert Island Alternatives for me, anytime anywhere).

(Oh I've got pages to paste in....but I'll show restraint as it isn't really the subject here...).

[pastoralguy]

Was Wagner necessary for pastoralguy?

No!

[ahinton]

"Some of the early quartets are nearly as bad.."?! (Pass us the brandy, Edge my fellow Mendelssohnian, as if I haven't had enough excitement for one day).

Do you really want to get me started on defending Mendelssohn, whom I worship as one of my all-time musical Gods?
Those early Quartets (I presume you refer to Op.12 & Op.13) are highly original rapprochements with that late-quartet Beethovenian inheritance, with startlingly precocious, confident and innovative use of cyclical sonata-forms....
They also happen to be supremely memorable, lovable masterpieces, entirely in Mendelssohn's own so beautiful voice. Concise too with scarce a bar wasted. (Desert Island Alternatives for me, anytime anywhere).

(Oh I've got pages to past in....but I'll show restraint as it isn't really the subject here...).

Hear, hear, Jayne! And what about Op. 80, his final quartet, which may not be "lovable" or even in places "beautiful" but packs one heck of a punch despite having some of its roots in Beethoven Op. 95 (although the Beethoven at least ends in a sunny F major whereas the Mendelssohn rides into a fearsome F minor Hell)...

[ahinton]

Was Wagner necessary for pastoralguy?

No!

Then shame upon thee!

[EdgeleyRob]

"Some of the early quartets are nearly as bad.."?! (Pass us the brandy, Edge my fellow Mendelssohnian, as if I haven't had enough excitement for one day).

Do you really want to get me started on defending Mendelssohn, whom I worship as one of my all-time musical Gods?
Those early Quartets (I presume you refer to Op.12 & Op.13) are highly original rapprochements with that late-quartet Beethovenian inheritance, with startlingly precocious, confident and innovative use of cyclical sonata-forms....
They also happen to be supremely memorable, lovable masterpieces, entirely in Mendelssohn's own so beautiful voice. Concise too with scarce a bar wasted. (Desert Island Alternatives for me, anytime anywhere).

(Oh I've got pages to past in....but I'll show restraint as it isn't really the subject here...).

Think LMP's been on it all day

Well said Jayne

[EdgeleyRob]

Hear, hear, Jayne! And what about Op. 80, his final quartet, which may not be "lovable" or even in places "beautiful" but packs one heck of a punch despite having some of its roots in Beethoven Op. 95 (although the Beethoven at least ends in a sunny F major whereas the Mendelssohn rides into a fearsome F minor Hell)...

[richardfinegold]

Mendelssohn is one of my favorite Composers. I listen to much less Wagner, but the main reason is not that I listen to very little Opera, and when I do it’s usually Baroque, Mozart, or bel canto.
I do enjoy the occasional bleeding chunk of Wagner, and the the famous extract from Tristan. I understand how important Wagner was in the development of Harmony, and how influential he was on most of my favorite Composers—Mahler, Bruckner, Debussy, Shostakovich, and others.
I was just wondering to what extent Wagner was influenced by the Generation of Composers between Beethoven and himself. With Beethoven. It is easy to see in his early music the links to Haydn , Mozart and other Classicists;when one looks at his late Music, we marvel at the distance traveled. Again, in his essay. Wagner seems to imply he was sprang from the womb fully developed musically. Thanks again to Ferney for his comments and everyone else as well.

[ahinton]

Mendelssohn is one of my favorite Composers. I listen to much less Wagner, but the main reason is not that I listen to very little Opera, and when I do it’s usually Baroque, Mozart, or bel canto.
I do enjoy the occasional bleeding chunk of Wagner, and the the famous extract from Tristan. I understand how important Wagner was in the development of Harmony, and how influential he was on most of my favorite Composers—Mahler, Bruckner, Debussy, Shostakovich, and others.
I was just wondering to what extent Wagner was influenced by the Generation of Composers between Beethoven and himself. With Beethoven. It is easy to see in his early music the links to Haydn , Mozart and other Classicists;when one looks at his late Music, we marvel at the distance traveled. Again, in his essay. Wagner seems to imply he was sprang from the womb fully developed musically. Thanks again to Ferney for his comments and everyone else as well.

Whilst it's arguably true that some composers did more or less do that (Chopin and Medtner spring immediately to mind), it's not that common and it's certainly not true of Wagner who, in his youth, aimed to be a playwright rather than a composer and his early operas evidence little of the distinctive character that marks all of his mature work. Berlioz and Liszt were influences on him as well as Beethoven, although those influences are perhaps rather more apparent than that of Beethoven.