"No one can bar me from joyfully proceeding on what the great masters have left us; after all, to rediscover everything again, should be understood to be unfounded. But one should however proceed on merit, and not simply repeat what was. All genius, sincere, deserves his place, even though maybe later in life."

 

This statement by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847) has turned out to be foreknowledge, not only in the composer's own life but also regarding his unfinished Sixth Symphony in C major (ca. 1842-1846), of which the two-movement reconstruction (2020-2023), comprising the existing movements Allegro ma non troppo and Andante rooted on the sketches by Mendelssohn, has now been published. Mendelssohn, whose most significant cultural and historical achievement as a musician was the revival of St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, and its then unknown composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) on March 11st, 1829, in Berlin, almost 80 years after the composer’s demise, already aroused mixed feelings among his contemporaries due to his conservative tendencies, and even though his compositions met with admiration among the general public, which in some cases reached the critics as well, he was already eclipsed in his lifetime by his reform-minded colleagues. The nineteenth-century antisemitism, which was further emphasized by national socialism in Germany between 1933 and 1945, virtually pushed Mendelssohn into obscurity. It is only in the 21st century that musicologists, musicians and composers have become more and more aware of Mendelssohn's musical output and its greatness, and he is now recognized as one of the leading composers in the history of Western art music. Out of this increasing curiosity, rediscovering the musical output of the composer and its comprehensive and in-depth research, the now-published reconstruction of his Sixth Symphony is also an evident testimony.

 

At the age of 5, one had his first exposure to Mendelssohn's music in the early months of 2002, when the core works comprised Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1838-1844), Overture and incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21 (1826) and Op. 61 (1842-1843), Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Overture, Op. 27 (1828), Fourth Symphony in A major, Op. posth. 90, subtitled as Italian (1833-1834) and Fifth Symphony in D minor, Op. posth. 107, subtitled as Reformation (1830, rev. 1832). On the subsequently named Romantic era, Mendelssohn has been tenderly credited as being the one who introduced pixies to the symphony orchestra, due to the imaginativeness and lyricism of his musical language. And indeed, one can recall having been listening to the works with a high level of attention: Mendelssohn's elaborated melodies and jovial, competently drafted orchestration enthralled and moved me, even at that time. Along with Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), among others, Mendelssohn became one’s favorite composer early on, and it was also his music that one was returning on many occasions during one’s childhood and adolescence. During the first semester from August 2019 to May 2020 at Tampere University of Applied Sciences, while studying in the music perception pedagogy programme with a focus on composition, one’s interest in this composer, who has been heralded as the greatest child prodigy of Western art music, who was originally a Jew despite his devout Lutheranism and who passed away prematurely, was reawakened, albeit one had already performed as a violist on March 20th, 2019, in Lahti at the Church of the Cross his Viola Sonata in C minor he had composed as a teenager.

 

Mendelssohn's catalogue of works comprises a considerable number of planned but unfinished large-scale works, of which the Sixth Symphony, dated from around 1842 to 1846 on the basis of his correspondence, is just but one example. The two notable extensive fragments, published posthumously, consist of a set of orchestral solo and choral numbers for a planned three-part oratorio Christus, Op. posth. 97, and an opera Loreley, Op. posth. 98, both dating from the very last year of Mendelssohn's life, 1847. A two-movement draft for the Third Piano Concerto in E minor is attributed to around the year of 1844. It is also acknowledged that Mendelssohn worked on the Symphony in B-flat major between the years of 1838 and 1839, prior to the composition of the Lobgesang Symphony (posth. No. 2, 1840), but the only surviving material is the main theme and three pages of the orchestral score sketch.

 

As regards of the history of the now-reconstructed work, the composition of the Sixth Symphony was an arduous undertaking for Mendelssohn, causing him a great deal of distress, as the correspondence between his colleagues and relatives attests. The tribulations Mendelssohn endured were not, however, exceptional when one considers him as a symphonist. The Scottish Symphony, which was the third to be published and was premiered in 1842, originated from a draft dated as early as 1829. On the other hand, Mendelssohn was so dissatisfied with the Reformation Symphony that he officially rejected the work and even considered destroying it entirely. However, the original material for the first movement of the Sixth Symphony, which is in some areas implemented in a detailed and extensive manner, suggests the severe self-criticism was most conceivably not the cause behind its incompleteness. If the Sixth Symphony had been finished, it would have been Mendelssohn’s final. The causes were external: Mendelssohn's final years were full of hard work and marred by health problems and personal crisis, leaving no time or opportunity to complete the symphony.

 

The archiving of Mendelssohn's manuscript material, and thus the preservation of the draft material for the Sixth Symphony to the present day, is the result of family pedantry. Almost immediately after Mendelssohn's passing on November 4th, 1847, those close to the composer began to sort and archive his manuscripts. The manuscripts were handed over in 1878, most from the holdings of the family members, to the Royal Library of Berlin, now the National Library. The Sixth Symphony remained in the possession of Mendelssohn's eldest daughter Marie Benecke Mendelssohn until her demise on October 28th, 1897, after which the manuscript material was transferred, as part of the estate's archives, to the Marie Benecke Mendelssohn Collection of the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford. The blueprint for the now-published reconstruction started only in September 2020, after one had contacted the University of Oxford. However, the digital copies of the manuscripts were not received until May 31st, 2022, as the number of employees responsible for digital scanning had been reduced due to the global pandemic. The reconstruction was carried out between October 11st, 2022, and November 1st, 2023, where the orchestration of the 15-minute first movement was completed on February 10th, 2023, after a mere three-week process. The completion of the 10-minute second movement required a bit over two months, with a launch date of August 27th, 2023.

 

Mendelssohn's manuscripts explicitly confirm the perception he projected his Sixth Symphony into a Great Symphony in C major in the same manner as that of Franz Schubert (1797-1828, D 944, 1824-1826). Mendelssohn was well acquainted with Schubert's symphony, having received the score from Schubert's brother Ferdinand (1794-1859) in 1838 and having conducted its premiere in Leipzig with the Gewandhaus Orchestra on March 21st, 1839, more than a decade after the composer's passing on November 19th, 1828. Since Mendelssohn did not sketch his Sixth Symphony beyond the second Andante movement, attempts to create the third Scherzo and fourth Finale movements from scratch, to achieve a full Romantic symphony, are not justifiable. Even in its two movements, the work is 25 minutes in duration which already has the scale of a full symphony, although the work was most plausibly intended to be twice as long, at least – an assumption that is supported, with all its repetitions, by Schubert's Great Symphony, which lasts approximately 60 minutes.

 

The original material for the Allegro ma non troppo first movement, although fragmentary, indicates an extensive whole: lyricism and flowing sections are counterbalanced by zealotry and declarative fanfares and musical ideas, despite their incompleteness on paper, are well thought through and developed, referring to the musical associations surrounding an individual fragment. The most ambitious stage in the reconstruction was the 172-measure development, for which no sketches by Mendelssohn have existed, except for the very beginning. In its 562 measures and 15 minutes of duration, the first movement is Mendelssohn at his grandest and indicates the composer was moving towards previously unexplored, more romantic and emotionally passionate musical expression. Although one employed the composer's completed symphonies and overtures as reference compositions for the orchestration of the first movement, cogitation was not only limited to those and sometimes there was not a direct link to the works at all – something that was most evident when working on the 50-measure Più animato coda, which had to be composed from scratch. The 191-measure second Andante movement, on the other hand, comprised only the first 40 measures as Mendelssohn's sketch, and although the material was re-used in the later half, the B section had to be composed, like the coda of the first movement, without any source material. Even so, all the passages one was composing were either derived from already existing musical subjects or were influenced by a typical,  warm-spirited musical expression of Mendelssohn – therefore there are no discernible breakpoints in the music in terms of where Mendelssohn's material ends, and the completion begins. Everything is merging in a natural manner. At times, it even felt as if one was engaging in a dialogue with Mendelssohn himself as the completing went at such a fluent pace, which is also perceptible in the outcome.

 

It is yet to be seen in what ways the Sixth Symphony will alter the perception of Mendelssohn as a symphonist once the work has established its status as part of the composer's orchestral output. What is already abundantly apparent, however, is that the work provides fascinating insights into the composer, whose musical expression has been considered to represent not only characteristics inherited from the Baroque aesthetic, but also nuances derived from his Jewish origins.

 

Most sincere acknowledgements to the staff at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, for the cooperation and to Otto A. Malm Endowment Foundation for the working grant that enabled the reconstruction to be finalized.

 

Further reading:
Todd, Larry. R. 2007. Mendelssohn Essays. Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge. Taylor & Francis Group.

The following article has been elaborated by the author of this significant project, our composer Luukas Hiltunen.