CAMERATA PYP PROGRAM NOTES: FELIX MENDELSSOHN: THE HEBRIDES, OP. 26

Posted on May 11, 2022

FELIX MENDELSSOHN: THE HEBRIDES, OP. 26

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) began writing The Hebrides at the age of 20. This remarkable work had already been preceded by multiple masterworks by one of history’s greatest musical prodigies. The Hebrides (sometimes called Fingal’s Cave) was called an Overture by Mendelssohn, although it was never meant to precede anything. It is truly an early effort at what we would now call a “tone poem.”

The confusion over the title may be related to the fact that Mendelssohn visited Staffa, the island which houses Fingal’s Cave. Staffa is not part of the Hebrides, which Mendelssohn saw from the Scottish coast but did not visit. The composer also worked on the piece with at least three titles, “Lonely Island,” “The Hebrides” and “ “Overture to the Isles of Fingal.”

Little need be said of the substance of this work, universally admired since its publication in 1834. Johannes Brahms himself said of it: “I would gladly give all I have written, to have composed something like The Hebrides Overture.”
David Hattner