Page:The story of the flute (IA storyofflute1914fitz).djvu/179

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Mendelssohn's use of Flute

I made the slightest slip every single person in this large audience would notice it." Chorley tells us how, in 1847, Mendelssohn and he, when taking a walk together near Interlacken, heard the sound of distant cow-bells in the valley below, Mendelssohn stopped, listened, and began to sing this cor anglais melody. "How beautifully," he exclaimed, "Rossini has found that. All the introduction too is truly Swiss. I wish I could make some Swiss music."

Mendelssohn has given very considerable prominence to the flute, and writes most delightfully for it. His Midsummer Night's Dream music—inMendelssohn's
"Midsummer
Night's
Dream which one writer says the composer has exhausted the resources of the instrument—contains quite a number of fascinating flute passages. In the very first bars of the overture he makes a very striking effect by means of slow ascending chords sustained by two

Mendelssohn, Midsummer Night's Dream Overture.

$\new Staff \with { instrumentName = "2 FLUTES." midiInstrument = "flute" } \relative c'' { \key e \major \time 2/2 <e gis>1\fermata\p <fis b>\fermata <a e'>\fermata <<<e' gis>~\pp { s4. s16\< s s2 }>> <<<e gis>1\fermata\> { s4. s16 s s2\! }>> } \layout { indent = 2\cm }$

flutes; the delicate, elfin-like scherzo contains one of the most famous flute passages ever written—namely, the concluding rapid staccato passage (Mendelssohn was one of the first to introduce such passages for the wind) lying in the middle and lower registers, and descending to the low C♯. Mendelssohn fully appreciated the value

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