Talk:Symphony No. 5 (Mendelssohn)

Names and Numbers

Mendelssohn's symphonies are not generally distinguished by numbers but by key signatures and their sobriquets (not all of which are Mendelssohn's own I believe). --Wetman 03:48, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Broken Media links

The listen links at the bottom of the page are password-protected and the files they point to seem to exist no longer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.32.46.190 (talk) 04:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I removed this section. DavidRF (talk) 04:34, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Forgery?

I'm removing the forgery claim. Its unsubstantiated and appears to go against the rest of the article. A claim that is that strong is going to require citations. DavidRF 23:17, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it appears to have been an unusually devious vandalism, slipped in under cover of a subsequent, much more obvious one (changing the symphony title to "Deformation Symphony"). This was the last of four successive edits by anonymous editor 131.111.8.96 of Cambridge, UK—possibly a student with too much time on his hands—unwittingly reverted a few hours later by anonymous editor 71.137.16.110 of San Diego, who clearly did not carefully check the earlier edit history. I think this is a cautionary tale for anyone editing Wikipedia.--Jerome Kohl 18:26, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Example for the Second Movement is wrong

The example given for the second movement is not the second movement at all, but actually comes from the first movement (mm. 80 or letter B). Additionally, the material listed as the second theme of the first movement is actually the first theme, as the preceding material is actually the introduction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Musicwatch (talk • contribs) 00:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Performance frequency

Top of page: "Although the symphony is not very frequently performed, it is better known today than it was during Mendelssohn's lifetime." Bottom of page: "However, the piece was published posthumously in 1868 and is now performed by many orchestras worldwide." The latter statement is tagged with a "citation needed" but there's no indication of the sourcing for the first statement, either. Does anyone have enough familiarity with international concert schedules to determine whether this is a piece commonly in the repertoire? Gidklio (talk) 23:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC) A preposterous statement in my view:NSO 2015, ACS 2013, BSO 2004, sure not like Italian but so what? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.134.102.172 (talk) 00:17, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Serpente?

The "serpente" you see in scores of the 4th movement of Mendelssohn's 5th Symphony is surely not the "serpent", 17th and 18th c. instrument that was replaced by the ophicleide from the beginning of the 19th c. and whose name in Italian is in any case "serpentone" (and not "serpente"). I think that the most likely is that this "serpente" is intended to be the ophicleide. In the meantime (until reliable data is adduced) I have removed the link from "serpente" to the article serpent (musical instrument), but I have not replaced it with a link to article ophicleide as long as there is no incontrovertible data that this is what is meant. Also: contrary the what the article says, the "serpente" is not replaced by the contrabassoon in modern performances. The score has both "serpente" and contrabassoon always written in unison (i.e. from the way the contrabassoon is written, at the octave). If modern performances do not use the "serpente" it would be more accurate to say that the contrabassoon is used alone, as opposed to the "serpente" and contrabassoon pair that the score indicates. Contact Basemetal here 21:03, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Some very good points here, but you may be jumping to one conclusion prematurely: it is true that the usual Italian word for the serpent is serpentone, but this is an augmentative by its construction, the "ordinary" form of which is serpente. There are several possible explanations why this form of the word might be found in Mendelssohn's score: (1) instrument terminology was not particularly standardised in those days, and this is especially true for less-common instruments; (2) the serpent came in different sizes, including a comparatively rare contrabass, so it is possible that the composer wished to reserve the augmentative form for the largest size, which he did not want here; (3) the name ophicleide is simply Greek for "keyed serpent", and perhaps Mendelssohn thought it would be better to render the name in ordinary Italian (when he wrote this symphony, the ophicleide had only been in existence for 13 years). It is also true that there were keyed serpents in the early 19th century that were not ophicleides, by dint of their construction in wood instead of metal. Adam Carse (Musical Wind Instruments, London, 1939) provides some interesting information (p. 276): "Since Berlioz expatiated on the horrors of serpent-tone, most other writers on orchestration have indulged in uncomplimentary or facetious remarks [fn: 'The whole instrument presented the appearance of a dishevelled drain-pipe which was suffering internally' (Forsyth)] about an instrument which many of them can never have heard properly played, but which is specified in the scores of orchestral works, operas and oratorios written during the second quarter of last century by such composers as Berlioz (!), Mendelssohn and Wagner. The serpent has to its credit a useful career of something like 300 years; it should not be regarded as a poor imitation of a euphonium, a bass-tuba or a trombone; it was a bass-cornett, and its tone quality was its own, one which even the modern orchestra with all its wealth of resource and variety cannot now produce." Carse does not specify which score or scores by Mendelssohn call for the serpent, and on page 291 names him again, this time amongst composers who scored for the ophicleide "round about the middle of last century."—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:24, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Useful observations. So the serpent continued to be used into the 19th c. even after the invention of the ophicleide. I did not know that. Apparently old things take a longer time a-dying than one would tend to guess. Going through Berlioz's Traité d'instrumentation... I've just discovered there's a part for viola d'amore in a Meyerbeer opera. In fact the article Serpent mentions serpent parts in operas by Spontini and Bellini and even in Wagner's Rienzi. I wonder what term Wagner uses. That at least can be easily checked. It also mentions that Mendelssohn wanted to use the so called "English bass horn" (a peculiar low version of the serpent) in "Midsummer's Night Dream" (the part written in the 1820s or the 1840s? it doesn't say) but that he later changed it to the ophicleide. Berlioz's Traité (I checked the first, 1843, edition; I wonder about later editions) still mentions the serpent (p. 230, but for Berlioz it is a transposing instrument, in B-flat, whereas it is not in Mendelssohn's score). Berlioz also mentions something called the "Basson russe" (Russian bassoon!) which is yet another low version of the serpent and which is in C. Maybe the most prudent thing is to reinsert the link from Mendelssohn's "serpente" to the serpent article but with a word of caution. For anyone who would go about looking for sources to find out what precisely is meant by "serpente" in the score of Mendelssohn's 5th one more avenue of research (not, God forbid, original research!) would be to look at scores (if they exist) where there is no doubt what Mendelssohn intended (serpent or ophicleide) and see what terms he uses there. Any "historically informed" recordings? They would at least relay the opinion of a presumably "historically informed" conductor. Contact Basemetal here 18:47, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

According to Adam Carse, serpents were in use up until the 1890s in France and Belgium (where they had reverted to their original function of supporting church choirs) as well as in some "remote parts of this country" (namely, the UK—one imagines the Outer Hebrides, the Isle of Wight, or Milton Keynes). Serpents were made in different keys, and had the capability of playing "undertones" by slackening the lips suitably, which complicates the question of just what size instrument Mendelssohn may have had in mind. I think adding a cautionary note to the restored link is a good idea. Carse also devotes a generous space (a little over five pages) to the basson russe, which is evidently the same thing as Mendelssohn's English bass horn, and is also known by the names "serpent basson", "serpent anglais", "o[r]phibaryton", and "Fagottserpent".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:37, 2 June 2013 (UTC)