Song Details

Title: Regrets (Songs Without Words No. 2) - Mendelssohn

Year: 2005

Zach's Role: Piano

Description: The very same year Haydn died, a new musical voice was born. Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) is argued by some to be "the Classic-Romantic," because while his music draws heavily from composers such as Bach (fugal technique), Handel (rhythms, harmonic progressions), Mozart (dramatic characterization, forms, textures) and Beethoven (instrumental technique) and generally adheres to classical ideals, it is also influenced by the poetry of Goethe and Shakespeare, often underpinned by a literary, artistic historical, geographical or emotional connection. Indeed, it was chiefly in his skillful use of extra-musical stimuli that he was a Romantic.

Although perhaps best known to the musical community for reviving and championing the works of J.S. Bach, Beethoven, and others such as Berlioz, his own prodigious creative talent refuses to be overlooked. He was skilled at reconciling classical principles with personal feeling (particularly in his chamber music). Much more widely traveled than Bach, his music encompasses a great stylistic scope.

Always a warm friend and valued colleague, he was devoted to his family; his death at the age of 38, after a series of strokes, was mourned internationally.

It is apropos that Mendelssohn chose to title this sombre work "Regrets." The harmonies in this piece are continually unfinished, chords that are almost integral but for one broken, dissonant note reminding us of our own cadences that almost were, our own resolutions that should have been. We cannot think about our own regrets without feeling acutely the tension of incompleteness, the longing to remake a moment without its dissonance; but as this piece demonstrates, our moments are over as soon as they happen and we cannot rewind. Particularly poignant is a moment near the middle, where the piece almost assumes a pleasant mien, as though recollecting a happy thought, only to find it leads inescapably back to the theme of regret. After that hopeful effort, the remainder of the piece loses momentum in the despair of tarnished memories.

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