March for orchestra in D major ("Cornelius"), Op. 108

• Date: 1841 04
• Composer: Felix Mendelssohn
• Period: Romantic (1820-1869)

Review

No composer, however great, makes it through a long career without issuing some bad eggs. Even those composers generally considered the greatest of the great -- Bach, Mozart, Brahms, and friends -- had their bad days, and indeed, it is to some minds those very bad days that make their good days so much the greater. The March in D major for orchestra, Op. 108, that Felix Mendelssohn composed in 1841 for a festival honoring the painter Peter von Cornelius' visit to the city of Dresden was, of course, never meant to be an earth-shattering masterpiece. It is light music, head to toe, never downright unseemly -- the kind of transparent, unpretentious music making that sometimes drew the best from Mendelssohn. It is, however, sometimes so square and podgy as to sound comic -- and that, certainly, is not what its composer wanted.

The march is carried out at Vivace tempo. It is built as a traditional march should be: in many short sections, marked to be individually repeated. The orchestra is a standard symphonic one save for the complete omission of flutes (something that seems quite extraordinary to those of us used to Pomp and Circumstance marches and John Philip Sousa marches, in which the flutes are indispensable). There are two trio sections. In each, the brass drop out, though Mendelssohn allows the bass trombone to play during the second. The March in D major ends with a flurry of rigid dotted rhythms, just as it began. ~ Blair Johnston, Rovi

Albums with Complete Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Organ Majestic!
Popular Organ Music, Vol. III
The Victory Bands, 1928 - 1931	1994

Albums with Excerpt Performances of the Work

Title	Date
100 World's Best Loved Melodies	2005
500 Classic Masterpieces [Box Set]	1992
Classical Ambience: The Ultimate in Calming Classics	2002
Classics for a Quiet Evening	2006
Great Conductors of the 20th Century, Vol. 37: Fritz Reiner
Music for a Wedding Day	2004
Musiques de mariage (Wedding Music)	2004
The Best of Classics from the Movies	2001

Previous:	March for orchestra in C minor, "To the memory of Suvorov"
Next:	March for orchestra in D major ("Haffner"), K. 249