Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 2, Op. 52 ("Lobgesang," or Hymn of Praise), appeared in 1840 and was actually the last of his five symphonies. The occasion for its composition, curiously enough, was the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press, but the texts used in its choral sections are drawn mostly from the Book of Psalms. Its three instrumental movements, multi-sectional choral finale with fugue, and numerous smaller details attest to the fact that Mendelssohn was grappling with the example of ...
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Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 2, Op. 52 ("Lobgesang," or Hymn of Praise), appeared in 1840 and was actually the last of his five symphonies. The occasion for its composition, curiously enough, was the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press, but the texts used in its choral sections are drawn mostly from the Book of Psalms. Its three instrumental movements, multi-sectional choral finale with fugue, and numerous smaller details attest to the fact that Mendelssohn was grappling with the example of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, which almost nobody else was doing in 1840. The work is sui generis within Mendelssohn's oeuvre, and it has suffered historically both because it's not one of his sure-fire crowd-pleasers and because it was a religious work in a secular time. It seems to be making a comeback, however, perhaps because it's a puzzling, somewhat misshapen work that gives conductors something to dig into. This audiophile-quality version by the Netherlands Symphony...
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