INTRODUCTION

In the summer of 1824 the fifteen-year-old Mendelssohn spent a holiday with his father in the fashionable spatown of Bad Doberan, on the Baltic coast near Rostock. Writing home to his family in Berlin he confessed that, although they were "comfortably lodged, and with friendly people, have a decent piano, pretty view, ... so far I have not written a note" (July 3). Instead, he bathed in the sea for the first time, translated Latin odes, read Cicero and Homer, and played the piano at the residence of the Grand Duke Friedrich Franz I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, under whose patronage the spa (and sea bathing) had grown popular; Field Marshal Blucher, Wilhelm van Humboldt, Marcel Proust, Rainer Maria Rilke, Queen Luise of Russia and Tsar Nicholas I all spent their summer holidays there.

It was probably at the residence that Mendelssohn met the members of the court ensemble, a wind-band (Harmonie) for which he wrote the present Nocturno, scored for the classical octet of double winds, plus a flute, trumpet and "Como Inglese di Basso".' This last instrument was a conical bore, upright relative of the serpent, with a cup mouthpiece and both open and keyed holes, rather in the shape of a bassoon, which Mendelssohn described to his sisters as "a large brass instrument with a fine, deep tone, and looks like a watering can or a stirrup pump" (Letter, 21 July 1824; NYPL). He illustrated it in a post-script to his letter three days later (Letter, 24 July 1824, NYPL; see facsimile, p. X). The instrument was designed in England by a French refugee from the Revolution, Alexandre Frichat, and built in London by John Astor; like the serpent, the Russian bassoon and the later ophicleide, it was used mainly to reinforce the bass line (Beethoven's military marches have a part for "Contra Fagotto e Bashorni"). Mendelssohn employed it again in his music for A Midsummer Night's Dream (although the published score replaced it with 'Ophicleide'), in the unpublishedmarches written for the Dusseldorf town band (1833-4)and in the Trauer-Marscn Op. 103 (1836).

For the Nocturno he appears to have regarded it as optional,since he refers to the piece as being "fur 10 Blaseinstrumente". Although its part is often taken by a bass tuba today, Mendelssohn appears to have preferred the ophicleide as a substitute, and on occasion his friend Sir George Smart transferred such music to an extra bassoon (see his performance notes in the MS score of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Royal Academy of Music, London). To give it to a contra-bassoon adds gravitas, but also an octave dislocation which the composer did not intend.

No material from this first version of the Nocturno appears to have survived. According to letters of 1838-9, Mendelssohn gave away (or lost) his score to someone in Mecklenburg.' In 1826 he "recopied" the piece (we are not told from what), and this is the manuscript that now survives in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, dated 27 June 1826 (N Mus.ms. 96). However, the many small "composing" alterations in this source indicate that it was certainly a revision rather than a fair copy. Thereafter nothing is said about the piece until 1838, when Mendelssohn decided to enlarge the scoring to a full military ensemble of twenty-three players plus "Janissarymusic" and offer it to the publishers Simrock, together with a reduction for piano duet, as Ouvertiire for Harmoniemusik Op. 24 (see BA 9055). At the same time he wrote asking them to publish the Nocturno version which he describes as an "Ouverture fur 10 Blaseinstrumente" (letter to Simrock, 16 December 1838) and mentions an unknown arrangement for strings which should be published later - "das Arrangement fur Saiteninstrumente mochte ich Sie aber bitten (wie Sie auch selbst sagen) sparer erscheinen zu lassen" - but neither of these smaller versions seems to have been accepted, and the "recopied" 1826 manuscript is the prime source for the present edition.

It is possible that when he wrote the piece, Mendelssohn was aware of Louis Spohr's Notturno in C for wind instruments and "Turkish music" Op. 34, written in 1815. More probably, however, he was following the familiar tradition of wind Nachtmusik from the 18th century (Mozart referred to his. wind serenades K. 375 and K. 388 as "Nacht Musick" or "Nacht Musique") where the only nocturnal connection was that they were played at evening entertainments. The work also reveals an admiration of Carl Maria von Weber's wind-band scoring, particularly the incidental music to Preciosa (performed in Berlin in 1821) together with an open compliment to his Zigeuner-Marsch of Act I.

Mendelssohn's score gives two parts on one stave for oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns; phrasing and dynamics are assumed to apply to both parts, but when the parts diverge and the slurring is sometimes uncertain, it has been suggested editorially here with dotted slurs. There are also many repeated dynamics which have been preserved here - they may indicate the over-zealousness of a youthful composer or, more probably, the need for frequent reminders to the local wind-players. The diamond shaped crescendo/diminuendo marks, <:::::::::=-, a symbol typical not only of Mendelssohn's notation but that of many of his contemporaries, are preserved in this edition (see facsimile, page VIII, and bars 46 and 67). Editorial markings and additions are shown by dotted slurs and ties, accidentals and staccato dots in square brackets, and dynamics in italic type.

A number of the composer's alterations are mentioned in the Critical Commentary both for their musical interest and to support the argument that, despite Mendelssohn'sclaims, this MS cannot be taken as an exact copy of the missing original. The flute passage between bars 126-9 is also included, although it was later cancelled in the MS, since it presumably represents the 1824version. For the 1838 revision, Mendelssohn altered the tempo markings and added metronome indications (also repeated in his piano duet version); thus the opening  Andante became Andante con moto J = 66 and the Allegro vivace was marked J = 152.

Christopher Hogwood

Cambridge and Campagnatico

May 2005