Orchestration of a haunting Scherzo fragment by Mendelssohn for his 6th symph. ?

[Alan Howe]

But we're evading the issue here. What Gerd is proposing is far too fast. Try reducing the tempo and see where that gets us in terms of overall movement length.

AFAIK Mendelssohn's symphonic scherzos were actually quite short.

[matesic]

I'm on Gerd's side. What I hear is at the same tempo as the Midsummer Night's Dream scherzo is usually taken, with very similar woodwind figuration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUm41WqTix8
In fact it sounds like a crib of the latter...

[Alan Howe]

I'm not at all convinced. It's garbled at that speed. Quite clearly.

[Alan Howe]

And at this point there's clearly little point in simply batting back and forth disagreements over the tempo here. It's not getting us anywhere.

Gerd is perfectly entitled to proceed as he sees fit. Let him do so - and let's see where we end up overall with his project.

[gprengel]

Dear Matesic, your hint to the Midsummernight Scherzo was very enlightning!! Thank you! I am amazed about the similiarity and I was not even aware of this Scherzo!! But I think the op. 81 Scherzo has a little more variabelity and as a whole I like it a little more (especially the great tutti passage at 1:55).

I reduced the tempo now slightly by 5%:  www.gerdprengel.de/Scherzo81.mp3

I try now also a version with an additional Trio part with a variation of a most beautiful theme of an early Mendelssohn piano sonata ... let's  see ...

Thank you for your interest :-)

[Mark Thomas]

Of course, I can't go back now and hear the first tempo, but to my ears this slight slow down has made all the difference and it now sounds fine. I suppose the question which that begs, given the small change to the tempo, is whether the issue was a software one in the first place? Anyway, to me the Scherzo's tempo now seems to be a natural one.

[Alan Howe]

Yes, the reduction has made all the difference. Instead of sounding forced and mechanical, it now sounds natural and playable. Thanks!

[matesic]

Judging from the identical timings of Gerd's two clips it seems that by the time I heard it the tempo had already been reduced. Of 6 recordings of the string quartet version that can be heard on IMSLP the three fastest are more or less exactly at the revised tempo of 84 dotted crotchets per minute. The string orchestra recording on youtube is around 90 which I think is easily doable and wouldn't cause any problems for wind players familiar, for example, with the finale of the Italian symphony which usually goes at around 100. Take it away, maestro!

[Alan Howe]

It seems that by the time I heard it the tempo had already been reduced

Aha! Explains a lot!

[matesic]

Sorry Alan, you got in before my revision!

[Alan Howe]

It's a relief to know that we're now all agreed!

[gprengel]

After working all night I made it in 10 hours to write a trio for this symphony. I could have used an own trio theme but I wanted to have it as much of Mendelssohn as possible, so I used 2 tunes of some lesser known works by Mendelssohn: first the lovely theme in major key  from the 3rd mov. of his piano sonata op. 106 from his youth and secondly the sad tune of my favourite song by Mendelssohn, the "Schilflied" from op. 71,4, published around 1847. In the repetetion of this second tune I overlayed the first theme (in C-Major) on it (a-minor) and finally I overlayed the motif from the Scherzo on this . The Trio has become a slow waltz and so it is a strong contrast to the fast Scherzo ...  What do you think?

www.gerdprengel.de/Scherzo81.mp3

www.gerdprengel.de/Scherzo81.pdf (preliminary score)

Gerd

[Alan Howe]

My first reaction was that, at over 9 minutes, this is now too long (after a first movement of 11:23). Consider for a moment that the 2nd movement of Beethoven 9 is less than a minute longer than this! By comparison I'd expect a Mendelssohn symphonic scherzo to last no more than 5-6 minutes overall.

If I'm honest, I also think it loses too much momentum in the trio section.

[Mark Thomas]

This is an odd creative process, but since the question has been asked... Yes, Alan's right, the movement loses too much momentum in the trio, which is too long, and maybe I was misguided in suggesting that the movement should last as long as nine minutes, although I do feel that five or six would be too short given the scale of the other two completed movements. Perhaps 7:30-8:00 would be a better target to aim for, and perhaps do so by reducing the trio and the restatement of the scherzo material? I don't know, it's your project Gerd.

[Alan Howe]

I hesitate to say it, but I just can't conceive of such a long scherzo in a Mendelssohn symphony. Here, for example, are the proportions of three of his symphonies in Abbado's recordings, with the appropriate movements in bold:

Symphony 1: 10:39/6:40/6:45/8:14
Symphony 3: 16:54/4:04/11:28/9:55
Symphony 5: 12:13/5:48/3:45/9:09

My advice would be to wield the scissors!