Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage), Op. 27
Felix Mendelssohn
Recording
London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado
- Album
- Mendelssohn: Overtures
- Year
- 1985
- Length
- Period
- Romantic
- Listen
Painting
John Frederick Kensett
Near Newport, 1869
The piece
Mendelssohn wrote the overture in 1828, at nineteen, after a pair of short poems by Goethe about a ship becalmed at sea and then carried to harbor by a rising wind. A slow Adagio holds the calm, and a solo flute brings in the wind that sets off the Allegro.
The recording
Claudio Abbado recorded it with the London Symphony Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon in London, in sessions between 1984 and 1986. Ralph Moore in MusicWeb International wrote of Abbado's "truly numinous quality in the quiet openings of the 'Calm Sea' and The Hebrides."
Other recordings
John Eliot Gardiner's live 2014 recording with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Live) and Edward Gardner's with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Chandos).