Mendelssohn's motivation in writing the Six Preludes and Fugues was, as he expressed to his sister Fanny, to impose a strict discipline upon his piano writing after having produced several series of Songs without Words. From the results, it is also clear that he was trying to find a newly Romantic voice for the fugue at a time when it was widely considered an out-of-date, archaic means of musical expression. The composer Anton Reicha had suggested a method steeped in complete tonal freedom; others simply imitated the model of Johann Sebastian Bach in examples that lacked the older master's originality and artistry.

Mendelssohn was especially successful in shaking his fugues free of the ghost of Bach, who nonetheless remained one of his most important influences. In the Preludes and Fugues, Mendelssohn's essentially Romantic character exists side by side with a learned but fresh contrapuntal sense. Given the improvisatory character of the keyboard prelude, even in the time of Bach, Mendelssohn was free to indulge his pianism and imagination in the Preludes of Op. 35. The third of these is a blazing Capriccio, while the fifth resembles nothing so much as one of the composer's Songs without Words.

A number of the Fugues are particularly striking. In the first, a powerful crescendo climaxes in a free chorale before ending softly; even when the fugue subject returns in inversion, there is no sense of mere academic display. The third is a splendid, varied display of contrapuntal mastery, while the sixth is characterized by a particular virtuosity and brilliantly articulated rhythms.

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1a.Prelude in E-; 1b.Fugue in E-

Most of Felix Mendelssohn's Opus 35, a set of six prelude-fugue pairs for piano solo, was written during the mid-1830s—starting in about 1832 and gaining momentum as the 1837 date of publication approached. Op. 35, No. 1 is, however, an exception to this; its fugue seems to have been composed all the way back in 1827. It is often listed as the Prelude and Fugue, Op. 35, No. 1, in E minor/E major. But this is misleading, implying as it does that the prelude is in E minor and the fugue in E major. In fact, only at the tail end of the fugue does Mendelssohn make the switch from minor to major, and it is better to keep things simple and just say that it is in E minor.

Unlike the fugue that follows it, the prelude of Op. 35, No. 1 has never found a chronological home; no one seems quite sure when Mendelssohn wrote it, although 1832 or 1833 seem the most likely candidates. It is florid, and thick with always-rising arpeggios that fall nicely to the hand. Amidst this translucent Allegro con fuoco texture there is an angst-filled middle-voice melody; every so often a moving bass line pops up to support the froth above.

Mendelssohn was keen to trample on some of the previous few centuries' hallowed rules of melody-construction when he sat down to write the subject for the fugue: tritones abound, and the likewise forbidden intervals of the augmented second and the diminished fourth(!) find their way in as well. The fugue is in four voices, and reaches a climax in sixteenth notes that gives way at the end to a "Chorale" in E major.

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5a.Prelude in F-

The preludes contained in Mendelssohn's collection of Preludes and Fugues, Op. 35, show a wonderfully non-affinity with one another: each is unique in tone, gesture, and to some degree basic style. Were one playing the six Preludes and Fugues in order (something that perhaps was never intended), one would have to make a tricky shift of gears between the gentle, stream-like prelude and aristocratic, academic fugue of Op. 35, No. 4, in A flat major and the prelude of Op. 35, No. 5, in F minor. For this Andante lento is of a steady, serious stock not yet heard in Opus 35. Its melody would perhaps be light and lyric enough in another context, but sitting as it does atop the quietly throbbing chords of the left hand, it is like the raspy, passionate breath of a man plowing headlong to a fate he knows is dire but which he nevertheless is powerless to prevent. Mendelssohn uses the minor mode elsewhere in Opus 35 (No. 1 in E minor, No. 3 in B minor), but not with such demanding presence of grim purpose—and the F minor Prelude is grim even though it is mostly quiet (mostly, mind you: there is volume to spare at the crashing central climax!) and despite a glowing change to the major mode in the last bars.

The style of Vivaldi is invoked as the fugal subject for the following fugue (Allegro con fuoco) is announced by the treble voice. In this quick-footed essay that most unusual of musical effects is applied: good cheer and vitality in a minor mode context (and Mendelssohn does not even bother with a Picardy third at the end).

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