June Brides & Music

by Gail Smith

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Many pianists are asked to help plan and play music for weddings. It is advisable to meet with the bride-to-be several weeks before the wedding to help her select the right music. Music certainly sets the mood for any occasion. What is more important than having the perfect music for your wedding?

The following would be a sample of piano music appropriate for a wedding from start to finish that would create reverence, dignity, and beauty for the perfect wedding.

Many of these selections can be found in The Complete Church Pianist and Classical Piano Solos for Worship Settings.

It is always advisable to have many additional piano solos ready when playing for a wedding. The book Classical Piano Solos for Worship Settings has a whole hour of music to play. I have played for many weddings and have been shocked at the delays that have occurred. Once I had to play another forty-five minutes because a bridesmaid left her shoes at the hotel. Another time the limo was caught in traffic and the wedding was delayed and I had to keep playing a much longer prelude.

Mendelssohn's famous "Wedding Chorus" is used traditionally as the Recessional at most weddings. When we hear those famous chords we know the wedding is over and they are husband and wife. No other song has so much emotion packed into so few bars.

Mendelssohn is remembered for his Wedding Chorus and so much more...

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn

As a composer, a man, a friend, with society and family Mendelssohn stands apart. He was a man of taste and integrity. Mendelssohn's favorite motto was: "What is worth doing at all is worth doing well."

He was born November 3, 1809, in Hamburg, Germany. His father was a rich banker His mother spoke several languages, read Homer in the original, and played the piano. When Mendelssohn was three years old, the French captured the city and the family fled to Berlin. A new banking house was established. The whole family were baptized into the Lutheran Church and adopted the additional name of Bartholdy. They lived in a beautiful home with gardens and a big tree-lined canal in front of their home. All distinguished musical people who passed through Berlin visited the Mendelssohns.

When Mendelssohn was almost ten years old, he made his first public appearance as a pianist. He was very well received. From this time on he began to compose. There were sonatas, songs, a cantata, and sixty movements in 1821. He wrote or copied them with the greatest neatness and care in volumes which by the end of his life extended to forty-four in number and are now preserved in the Berlin Library. He always played his pieces from memory. On Sunday at the Mendelssohn home there was always an afternoon concert by Felix and Fanny and sometimes other musicians of Berlin.

Professor Zelter became Mendelssohn's master teacher. Mendelssohn's father Abraham had presented Zelter with a quantity of cantatas and other manuscripts by "the poor Cantor of Leipzig." Zelter reverenced these pieces by J. S. Bach and sometimes took Mendelssohn up to the closet of the Singakademie where they were stored, but he never allowed Mendelssohn to touch them. At last Mendelssohn's grandmother obtained a copy of the score of Bach's Passion Music and presented it to him at Christmas in 1823. This had great influence on him. He formed a small choir and rehearsals began January 1828, and the work was performed publicly on March 11, 1829, for the first time since the death of its composer. The apathy of the people which he dreaded was stirred to enthusiasm. Every ticket was sold and hundreds were turned away. This was the beginning of the Bach revival.

Mendelssohn found time not only to compose, but also for watercolor painting, swimming, dancing, billiards, chess, and riding. He spent half a year in Rome and was fortunate enough to witness the coronation of a pope. Mendelssohn spent six weeks in Naples, then visited Florence, Genoa, and Milan. From Geneva he walked to Interlachen, where he composed his only waltzes. Mendelssohn went to Paris, then to London where he gave four concerts. After the musical season was over he went to Scotland, stopping at the Hebrides where he was inspired to compose his overture called "Fingal's Cave."

After all his trips Mendelssohn had to stay in London for two more months recuperating in his room with a lame knee. It prevented him from being present at his sister Fanny's wedding.

In March 1837, at Frankfurt, he married his beautiful sweetheart Cecile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud. Shortly after their honeymoon, Mendelssohn had to go to England for his fifth trip to conduct his music at the Birmingham Festival. In one letter to his wife he said, "What is the good of all the double counterpoint in the world, if Cecile is not with me?"

Ever since 1838 Mendelssohn had kept in mind the subject of Elijah for an oratorio. In the midst of his incessant labors as head of the Conservatorium, teaching piano, composition and overseeing administrative details, Felix managed to finish the oratorio in time for the Birmingham Festival of 1846. While in London he played two hours at Buckingham Palace for the Queen and the Prince Consort alone.

This visit was his tenth to London and upon returning home Mendelssohn found out his sister had died. With a cry, he fell to the ground unconscious. He spent the entire summer in Switzerland resting and painting in watercolors. Thirteen large pictures of Swiss scenery are in existence. When Mendelssohn returned home his friends were shocked at how depressed he seemed and how much he had aged!

Felix Mendelssohn died November 4, 1847. All Europe mourned. Scholarships were established in his honor. Busts and statues of him were also erected.