Encounter III

The Grand Tour, with R. Larry Todd

SATURDAY, JULY 25
7:30 p.m., Martin Family Hall, Menlo School
Tickets: $40 adult; $20 student
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“This prophet, too, is not honored in his own country,” wrote the composer and pianist Ignaz Moscheles of Mendelssohn. “He must go elsewhere.” At twenty years old, the insatiable young polymath—already emerging, despite his youth, as a standard-bearer of Western music—grew restless in Berlin and pined to travel abroad. In 1829, he embarked on his Grand Tour through Great Britain, Italy, and France, intent on absorbing those countries’ myriad offerings, from Shakespeare and St. Peter’s to Scottish and Italian folk song. Leading Mendelssohn scholar R. Larry Todd will take audiences along on the composer’s fascinating three-year cultural odyssey, examining how Mendelssohn’s travels both inspired new works (such as the Scottish and Italian symphonies) and cultivated his sense of identity as a German musician.

More Encounters:

Encounter I »
Encounter II »
Encounter IV »

Image: Mendelssohn’s Scottish drawing (1829), surrounded by notes from his Scottish notebooks that he kept on his journey. (Lebrecht Music and Arts)