- Mendelssohn completed this piece on October 15, 1825, when he was sixteen years old.
- The Mendelssohn family had bought a new home in February of 1825, at 3 Leipzigerstrasse in Berlin. The house was a large mansion, but a fixer-upper, and the family lived in the small garden house on the grounds until renovations were complete. Felix probably wrote the Octet in the garden house.
- 3 Leipzigerstrasse would be the residence of Fanny Hensel and her family after her marriage, where she hosted private musical performances. You can find some watercolors (by Mendelssohn family and friends) of the (renovated) interior, and of the garden house, here.
- Mendelssohn wrote the Octet for his violin teacher, Eduard Rietz (a talented violinist who was only seven years older than Felix).
- Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel reported the Scherzo of Felix’s octet was inspired by the Walpurgisnachtstraum (Walpurgis Night Dream) in Goethe’s Faust. This passage (which is something of a dark parody of Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night’s Dream) features the wedding of Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of the fairies. An orchestra of insects and frogs plays at the wedding.
- The Finale of the Octet is a display of Mendelssohn’s contrapuntal skill, and it contains a quotation from Handel’s “Hallelujah” Chorus.1
Sources
- R. Larry Todd, “Mendelssohn(-Bartholdy), (Jacob Ludwig) Felix,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed March 23, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051795.
Cut IDs
10501 10502 40781 44289 10500 44290 41871 49200 44819