Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847) was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. His works include symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano music and chamber music.
His most-performed works include the Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the Hebrides Overture, the Violin Concerto and the String Octet. After a long period of relative denigration, driven by changing musical tastes and antisemitism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, his creative originality has been recognised and re-evaluated. He is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era.
Mendelssohn was particularly well received in Britain as a composer, conductor and soloist. His ten visits there, during which many of his major works were premiered, form an important part of his adult career. His essentially conservative musical tastes set him apart from more adventurous contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner and Hector Berlioz. The Leipzig Conservatoire (now the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig), which he founded, became a bastion of that anti-radical outlook.
Felix Mendelssohn is featured on the following titles
Mendelssohn Cello
Mendelssohn is often cast as a composer who lived a charmed life, and whose music therefore lacks depth. The glory of that music, its likeability, and his gift for celebrating humanity remain primary reasons for its lasting hold.
Compositions by Felix Mendelssohn also appear on
Magnificat
Douglas Lawrence plays a magnificent recital on the four-manual Rieger organ he designed for The Scots' Church, Melbourne, drawing out the instrument’s full range of colour and power.
Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields
Fifteen historic organs from the Ballarat region are heard on this disc, released to mark the 2005 Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields festival. A fully illustrated 16-page booklet surveys the builders, churches, instruments, music and performers.
Great Hall Grandeur
Amy Johansen plays the Rudolf von Beckerath organ in the Great Hall at the University of Sydney. Great Hall Grandeur presents one of Australia’s most beautiful and versatile pipe organs – among Beckerath’s last masterpieces – in the hands of one of the country’s finest concert organists.
The Rieger at Scots'
So just what does one play to demonstrate the resources of a large, beautifully voiced new organ? Douglas Lawrence sets out the wide tonal palette of the Rieger at The Scots' Church, Melbourne, completed in 1999.
Organ at the Opera
One of Move's all-time best sellers. Sydney City organist Robert Ampt and Amy Johansen play popular organ duets on the famous Ronald Sharp organ in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.
Historic Organs of the Barossa Valley, Vol. 2
Christopher Dearnley and John Stiller play seven historic Lutheran church organs of South Australia’s Barossa Valley in the second volume of this survey.
Teamwork
An eminently listenable collection of piano music for four and six hands. Romantic, brilliant and companionable by turns, it is an exciting, all-stops-out tour de force from the Team of Pianists.
With Tenderness, With Fire
Ronald Farren-Price encores his hugely popular Reflections with this solo recital, ranging from the sublime beauty of a Beethoven Adagio to the thundering splendour of Prokofiev’s Toccata.
Just Married: Organ Music for a Wedding
A compilation of history's most celebrated organ music, long popular at weddings. The insert notes usefully group the tracks as processionals, recessionals and music for the signing of the register.
Reflections
Internationally acclaimed pianist Ronald Farren-Price offers superb performances of some of the greatest music written for the piano, in a wide-ranging recital of favourite short works.
Jinker Ride
A recital collection celebrating the modern pianoforte, drawing on its full range of colour and touch across repertoire from Scarlatti and Clementi to Liszt, with special place given to Australian works by Dorian Le Gallienne and Raymond Hanson.
Ding Dong Merrily on High
A baker's dozen of well-loved traditional Christmas carols featuring children's and men's voices. Recorded in the magnificent acoustics of St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne.
Festival of Organ Masterpieces
Douglas Lawrence plays favourite organ repertoire on the instrument of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, spanning nearly three centuries of transcriptions and original works.
Lotus Dreams
Soprano Shu-Cheen Yu and pianist Katherine Day present eighteen favourite songs and ballads, from Brahms and Schubert to Chinese and Irish folk airs, a personal path through Lieder and art song.
Sing to the Lord, ye Heavenly Hosts
The Choir of The Scots' Church offers sacred music from sixteenth-century Palestrina to twenty-first-century Australian composer Andrew Batterham, crowned by a rare performance of Widor's Mass for choir, baritone choir and two organs.