Camacho's wedding

1.     Die Hochzeit des Camacho (Camacho’s wedding), overture Op. 10 by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dutIso2X0o4

 

2.     This Singspiel is a story taken from the book Don Quixote a story of a man who believes himself a hero. The story told in Die Hochzeit des Camacho is about a man who is forcing his daughter to marry a man she does not love. The man she does love makes attempts to stop the wedding and eventually does. The piece ends happy and the daughter and her love end up together. This was not the first Singspiel that Mendelssohn wrote, but it was the only one that he gave a performance for. It was also the last one he ever wrote. He composed this piece in 1825, but it was not performed until 1827. Upon hearing this piece, it was described as a failure. People did not take to the music. Could have been a lack of a good melody. But he also had a friend, Devrient, who spoke about this work as something that Mendelssohn had grew out of. So it could have been that he would have composed the piece a different way.

 

3.     A. He composed this piece to a libretto by Karl Klingeman, a familiar person to the Mendelssohn family. He wrote this piece around the age of 15 and was not the first mature piece that he had completed. His first performance of this piece was in 1827. It was staged at the Royal Court Theatre, located in Berlin.

 

B. The genre of this work is a Singspiel, which is German for singing play. It is more of a comic opera with spoken dialogue. The Singspiel is in two acts. Although a German genre, it is one that can be described in two different ways depending on which part of Germany one lived in. Those who lived in the southern part of Germany composed Singspiels that reflected similarities to Italy’s opera buffa. Those who lived in the northern parts however were more influenced by the French comic opera. This is an ordinary example of the genre, but it was not well received by the people or anyone else for that matter.

 

C. The form of the overture, in this work is usually in a fast-slow-fast sequence. It sort of tells its own story or what the mood may be like when the Singspiel starts. It is the introduction to the Singspiel. It is pretty typical of the period. There are fast sections that are interrupted by short slow sections. There is a reoccurring theme that starts right at the beginning when the strings come in and it comes back up throughout the overture.

 

D. This piece does hold more Romantic qualities about it. A Singspiel was sort of based in Romantic aspects. A Singspiel was also a lot of times meant to show German nationalism. I think that the using a larger orchestra for his work, especially with the use of the trombones and horns made it sound more nationalistic. The story is about a man who has deceived himself into thinking he is a hero, which reflects the individual. He wants to be a hero of those who need it which also reflects the Romantic nationalism. The overture being simply instrumental can reflect to the idea that German’s saw instrumental music as transcending and external, a Romantic idea.

References

Posner, H. (2001, May). Overture, Camacho’s wedding. Retrieved from http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/overture-camachos-wedding-felix-mendelssohn

Skelly, E. (2008, January 7). Singspiel. Retrieved from https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/arts-culture/2008/01/07/9068/singspiel/

Wikipedia. (2015, October 6). Die hochzeit des Camacho. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Hochzeit_des_Camacho