4 days to go: Mendelssohn bows to Bach
Dear concert guests,
Yesterday, Schumann’s Christmas present for Clara. Today, the music of his friend Felix Mendelssohn: the Cello Sonata No. 2 in D major, Op. 58, completed in Leipzig in 1843. A sonata full of sunlight, with a slow movement that bows deeply to Johann Sebastian Bach.
Mendelssohn and Bach
Bach was a lifelong cause for Mendelssohn. In 1829, aged twenty, he brought the St Matthew Passion back to life in Berlin, its first performance since Bach’s death. In Leipzig, Bach’s city, he campaigned for a monument to Bach, gave benefit concerts to fund it and paid the rest out of his own pocket. It was unveiled beside St Thomas’s Church on 23 April 1843. That same spring, Mendelssohn finished his cello sonata.
What you will hear
The first movement (Allegro assai vivace) bursts out like a bright summer morning. The second (Allegretto scherzando) is a light-footed game in B minor. Then the Adagio: the piano begins alone, with a chorale in broad, rolling chords, as if it came from a Bach cantata. The cello does not answer with a melody. It speaks, freely and urgently, like a singer in a recitative. The finale (Molto allegro e vivace) brings the light back in full force.
Today’s listening tip
The Adagio of the sonata in a historic 1939 recording: Emanuel Feuermann on the cello, Franz Rupp at the piano. Wait for the moment when, after the piano’s chorale, the cello begins to speak for the first time.
Listen on Apple Music · Spotify or YouTube, search for: Feuermann Rupp Mendelssohn Cello Sonata 2
To compare
Johann Sebastian Bach, the Chromatic Fantasia, BWV 903, played by Glenn Gould at the piano. Listen for the free, recitative-like passages: this is exactly the music the cello’s interjections recall in Mendelssohn, right down to an echo of the Fantasia’s closing bars.
Listen on Apple Music · Spotify or YouTube, search for: Gould Bach Chromatic Fantasia
Did you know?
Mendelssohn first meant to dedicate the sonata to his brother Paul, who played the cello himself. In the end he dedicated it to Count Mathieu Wielhorski, a superb cellist he had met in the summer of 1843. And this brings us full circle to yesterday: in 1844 Clara Schumann played the sonata with Wielhorski in St Petersburg and praised his playing.
Tomorrow: Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Martin Helmchen, the duo behind our concert.
Warm regards,
Andreas Haefliger & Marina Piccinini
The Duo
Marie-Elisabeth Hecker won the Rostropovich Competition in Paris in 2005, the first person in its history to take the first prize and two special prizes at once. Martin Helmchen won the Clara Haskil Prize in 2001; his recording of all of Beethoven’s piano concertos received a Gramophone Award in 2020. The two are married, perform as a duo worldwide and together run the «Fliessen» festival in Brandenburg. Their latest album, «From Eastern Europe» (Alpha Classics, 2025): Spotify · Apple Music
Marie-Elisabeth Hecker & Martin Helmchen, cello & piano
Sunday, 18 October 2026, 5.30 pm · Parish Church of St. Peter and Paul, Bürglen UR
Pay as you like (cash or TWINT) · about 70 minutes, no interval
Reserve a seat
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