Razumovsky Ensemble’s Account of Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat

O ur soul—how like the water! Our Fate—how like the wind!”
  —  Goethe.

It is difficult to find words that could possibly enhance enjoyment of the [Op. 20 Octet] Scherzo: [it is] at once a perfect and sufficient piece of abstract music and the most vivid tone-painting of wind-swept, cloud-wracked Nature: it is all gossamer, filigree, fugitive enchantment.”
  —  Hugh Wood.

The study of Mendelssohn has been ‘hot’ in recent years, and attention has focused on Mendelssohn’s identity. Jeffrey Sposato, professor at Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, in particular discusses Mendelssohn’s response to his Jewish heritage. There are examples of cadences composed by Mendelssohn and their close correspondence to cadences in Jewish ritual chants. It is easy to be reminded of this while listening to this famous early composition by Mendelssohn, presented by the Razumovsky Ensemble tonight at Wigmore Hall in London.

The 1825 Octet] attempted to capture the spirit of the last stanza of the Walpurgis Night dream in Faust: ‘The flight of the clouds and the veil of mist / Are lighted from above. / A breeze in the leaves, a wind in the reeds, / And all has vanished.’ One feels so near the world of spirits...”
  —  Jeffrey Sposato, The Price of Assimilation, p. 111.

It is reflexive, not deliberative; the narrative trajectory of this Octet is dramatic and impulsive. There is an energy of motion that is enhanced by the power of the eight instruments. The extrovertedness of the Octet is amazing—that of the then-16 year-old Mendelssohn—and is unlike the tempered, conciliatory, non-athletic dialogues of, say, Op. 44 and beyond. Larry Todd has a nice analysis of Op. 20 in his Mendelssohn biography, beginning at page 151.

Rather than a mere doubling of a quartet, Mendelssohn approached the writing as if it were an eight-piece orchestra. That much is conventional wisdom. But, to me, it seems that the biographers and historians have, to date, been writing hagiography; none has seriously considered what it must’ve been to write this piece as a teenager.


Mendelssohn composed his Octet for strings soon after his family had moved into a big house in the Leipzigerstrasse on the outskirts of Berlin. On the grounds was a garden house which had a room large enough to seat a sizeable audience for the family’s Sunday morning chamber music performances, which involved a number of Herr Mendelssohn’s musician friends. Mendelssohn presented the Octet to his string teacher, Julius Reitz, as a birthday gift. He wrote the soaring violin phrases at the beginning of the first movement in hopes of pleasing his teacher, but he was careful to provide meaty enough parts for the rest of the ensemble as well. This is the context that is seldom mentioned, in biographies or in program notes for this piece.

Octets for strings show signs of ‘clotting’ into an orchestral style. Spohr hit upon the device of dividing the eight into antiphonal quartets: and his four double quartets are much nearer to the true style of chamber music than his string quartets … But Mendelssohn, in the wonderful Octet, does not find Spohr’s simple antiphonal scheme worth the trouble of specially grouping the players when he can instead use 255 different combinations of the eight without enquiring how they are seated.”
  —  Donald Tovey.

How badly we need a detailed exploration of Mendelssohn’s notes with Fanny or other evidence—to see what frame of mind he was in during those months when this Octet was composed! This Octet is not a narrative of Jewish assimilation into Protestant Berlin; it is instead, I believe, a narrative of a precocious and eager-to-please teen’s assimilation into Leipzig adult culture. It is a story not of Jewish identity per se so much as it is a story of teen identity. Have a look at the books by Deborah Browning and Jane Kroger (links below) to explore this line of thought.

The Razumovsky Ensemble gave an enthusiastic reading of the Octet tonight that lends credence to the contextual importance of teenage identity and exuberance. The Razumovskys are an ad hoc assemblage of different world class soloists who are convened by Kogan for particular programs, based on their individual proclivities and repertoire affinities.

In 1989 Oleg Kogan won the All-Soviet Union Cello Competition. He has performed with orchestras including the Moscow Philharmonic, the Latvian State Symphony Orchestra, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra and London Soloist Chamber Orchestra and has given recitals in France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Switzerland and the U.K. In 1998 he became founded the Razumovsky Ensemble, a group of dynamic soloists and section leaders from world-class orchestras based in London. Tonight’s beautiful and illuminating performance was just one configuration of Oleg’s many friends and colleagues.

Mainstream kids do assimilate more smoothly and easily into social situations and their own neighborhoods, but often it is the children with out-of-the-box characteristics, who have the ability to make a significant and inspiring contribution to their community and the talent and vision to change the world in a positive way.”
  —  Stephanie Lerner, Kids Who Think Outside the Box, p. 3.

• Razumovsky Ensemble website
  
• Razumovsky Ensemble website mirror
  
• Amazon.com MP3s of Mendelssohn Octet Op. 20 movements
  
• ArkivMusic.com Mendelssohn Octet Op. 20 recordings
  
• Stahl S. Felix Mendelssohn: Musical Genius and Jewish Casualty. JewishVirtualLibrary.org, 1998
  
• Braun E, Hertz D, Reimer G. Affirmation/Indifference/Assimilation. Boston College, 2005.
  
• Browning D, ed. Adolescent Identities: A Collection of Readings. Analytic, 2007.
  
• Kroger J. Identity in Adolescence: The Balance Between Self and Other. 3e. Routledge, 2005.
  
• Mercer-Taylor P, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn. Cambridge Univ, 2004.
  
• Reich-Morris A. The Quest for Jewish Assimilation in Modern Social Science. Routledge, 2007.
  
• Sposato J. The Price of Assimilation: Mendelssohn and the 19th-Century Anti-Semitic Tradition. Oxford Univ, 2005.
  
• Todd L. Mendelssohn: A Life in Music. Oxford Univ, 2003.