Dear public,

The Concert next Saturday, March 19 , by Iberian Sinfonietta , which will begin at 7:00 p.m. at the Peace Palace in Fuengirola, will do so with one of the most interesting personalities that so-called classical music, or academic music, provides us. , Felix Mendelssohn .

Surely, this Spring Concert offered by Iberian Sinfonietta could be done in many ways, but of all of them, Maestro Juan Paulo Gómez has chosen this one. A work by one of the greats is always welcome, but we will hear it in a Concert that inaugurates spring, which unfolds in Fuengirola in that unique way. Therefore, opening that Concert with a work that mixes ingenuity and joy with exquisiteness, makes the beginning of the Concert on Saturday the 19th very special.

Mendelssohn is one of the great personalities of music. A child prodigy, with an affable character and weak nature, who already in life enjoyed immense popularity throughout Germany and much of Europe. He had a short life, as he died at the age of 38, but he left an immense legacy of works in which he worked in practically all genres. In fact, the order with which he published and edited during his lifetime is one of the factors why he is so interpreted, and that is that his work is perfectly ordered during his lifetime, and upon his death, his brother Paul Hermann compiled all the manuscripts. musicals that he could, a legacy that passed to the Royal Library of Berlin in 1878 in 44 volumes.

Félix Mendelssohn writes the work that Iberian Sinfonietta will perform at the age of 14, and between the ages of 12 and 14, he composed thirteen symphonies for string orchestra, as he called them. Of them, Iberian Sinfonietta will perform number 10. A short, lively, happy work, which takes us back to the atmosphere for which it was created, like the remaining 12, the meetings of the cultural elite of Berlin, who met at the house of the Mendelssohns and who were a meeting of artists, philosophers, businessmen and lovers of a good conversation who admired this family. At these meetings, all these works were premiered, with a young Mendelssohn as the protagonist. They were meetings with a great taste for current events, premieres and erudition, and in the middle of that atmosphere, the work of a young Mendelssohn like the one we heard. That is why it is fortunate to rescue and enjoy these works again. It is a short and very fluid work. Félix studied with his Maestro Zelter during its composition so the maestro's conservative musical tendencies are reflected in the choice of form and style; the string symphonies of Carl Phillipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), Johann Sebastian's second eldest son, were clearly an inspiration, and the slow introduction is reminiscent of Haydn. The dramatic script that follows, however, is pure Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn's taste for "old-fashioned" music, something unusual at the time, comes a lot from his Master and his admiration for previous musicians. The most famous example is that at the age of 29, Mendelssohn will conduct the Passion According to Saint Bach's Matthew , a work that had hardly been performed after Bach's death, and with which he created a whole current of admiration that reaches our days for the music of the German genius. In this work, we see a very classic and jovial style but with clear traces of mastery. Not to miss it.

Jorge Rodríguez Morata
Pedagogical content coordinator