Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn, a prodigious musical talent hailed by his contemporary Robert Schumann as the “Mozart of the 19th century”, has been the subject of shifting critical opinion since his early death in 1847. His finest compositions bridge the gap between ancient and modern, Classicism and Romanticism, always with brilliance and often with profound emotional intensity. Isata Kanneh-Mason has chosen an ideal selection of his piano pieces for her fourth solo album and placed them in company with works by his sister, Fanny Mendelssohn, whose fine music continues to enjoy increasing attention. Kanneh-Mason crowns her programme with Fanny Mendelssohn’s Ostersonate or Easter Sonata, a majestic four-movement work that vanished for a century and a half after her death (her brother died just six months later). Its initial attribution to Felix, following its rediscovery in the early 1970s, says much about the long reach of 19th-century patriarchal prejudices. Fanny, unlike Felix, was expected to preserve her wealthy family’s honour by not displaying her musical gifts in public; she could, however, perform in private to members of her own social class. “In terms of getting into Fanny’s mind, I always start with the music,” Isata Kanneh-Mason tells Apple Music Classical. “So I pay close attention to the score and use my musical instincts, too. For this album, I read a lot about her. I read some of her letters and books about her life, and tried to really get into her in that way as well. Fanny seems to me to be so very determined. She found ways to make music and compose, and she clearly had big hardships in her life that she took on the chin.” The pianist’s painstaking preparation returns rich dividends in her interpretation of the Ostersonate, notably so in its delicate expressive shadings and songful charm. The Mendelssohn siblings came from a remarkable family: their father was a prominent German Jewish banker and philanthropist, their mother, an accomplished musician and champion of culture; their paternal grandfather, the philosopher Abraham Mendelssohn, was a towering figure in the Haskalah or Jewish Enlightenment, while their maternal grandmother, Bella Salomon, studied piano with one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s pupils. And what of another remarkable musical dynasty, the seven Kanneh-Mason siblings? Does Isata detect any similarities with the Mendelssohns? “No, I think they were much more aristocratic,” she replies firmly. There’s no doubt about the aristocratic bearing of Isata Kanneh-Mason’s pianism in Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No.1. Her virtuosity is breathtaking, likewise her feeling for the work’s tender lyricism and copious expressive nuances. The work, drafted in Rome in the early months of 1831, soars from the moment she enters like a whirlwind after the briefest of orchestral introductions. Kanneh-Mason is equally at home in the rapt Andante and the thrilling mood changes that run through the finale. “It feels incredibly exciting,” she notes. “It’s kind of non-stop—it just flies from beginning to end. Whenever I sit down to perform it, I have to take a deep breath before playing. Once it starts, there’s no time to catch up to yourself!”