Felix on My Mind

On the occasion of the composer’s bicentennial, Maestro Eckart Preu and the Spokane Symphony Orchestra will, this Friday evening, present masterworks from the oeuvre of Felix Mendelssohn, one of the 19th century’s greatest melodists…

Nah, way too formal. This is a Casual Classics concert.

Try this instead: Friday night at the Fox, Eckart and friends will perform some stuff by that guy… you know the Wedding  March they play at traditional weddings (da-DAH-da-da, dum-DUM-dee-dum)? That guy — his stuff.

Only they’re not actually going to play the wedding tune. They’re gonna open with the “Overture to the Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Tedious title, I know. (Do they have to use boring titles? Who does the marketing for these people?) To explain: “incidental music” is like pieces of a film score. Think of this as a soundtrack that Felix wrote for a production of Shakespeare’s screwball comedy.

Then soprano Dawn Wolski and Spokane’s Really Big Choir will hit the high notes in four songs by Felix — two each from the “Christian” and “folk” sections of the record store. (In another clever marketing ploy, these songs have all-German titles.)

Let’s go back, though, to the best feature of the Symphony’s Friday night party: Starting an hour and a half before the show, chefs will serve appetizers and bartenders will pour wine for you out in the lobby. They’re calling it the “Art Deco Bistro.” If you subscribe to the whole series — this is the second of three “Anatomy of a Composer” concerts — you get a T-shirt good for a dollar off your drinks. Cheap booze and T-shirts at the symphony!

Or, as Eckart says, “We’ve been trying to make a point of not making it too highbrow.” Orchestra members will dress in black, but not like they’re going to their high school proms. Eckart will be talking a lot from the podium, giving little introductions to Felix and his music. It’ll be like a music appreciation class without the boring parts but with the wine. Good times!

So who was this composer again? The abridged version: Mendelssohn, with two S’s. Lived back in the capital-R Romantic era, but he wasn’t like one of those poets who were always getting passionate and going off and killing themselves. Child prodigy, wealthy family, idyllic marriage, had five kids. A genius. Lived on Easy Street. “Whatever he attempted, he succeeded in,” Eckart says, “so there was no reason for him to get dark.” That overture I mentioned? He wrote it when he was a 17-year-old sophomore at the University of Berlin. Like Mozart, our man Felix was a prodigy whose music is so accessible that it only seems effortless.

That’s why the entire musical world will be celebrating his 200th birthday next February.

Finally, after intermission — and more wine! — they’ll play Felix’s Symphony No. 3. (Another so-catchy title. Fortunately, this one has a nickname, the “Scottish,” because apparently Felix either did or did not sample some folk song he’d heard in Edinburgh — exactly the kind of thing that excites music professors and hip-hop fans but bores everybody else.)

The thing that everyone notices about the Scottish symphony, though, is that it’s “extremely energetic and upbeat. You find the same fast repetitions in the Midsummer Night’s Dream music,” says Eckart. (Over the phone, he hums along, accelerating through about 23 musical notes in 10 seconds flat.) “It propels the music forward. And in the second movement, underneath, the strings are going even more fast.” (Now he’s trilling like the Energizer bunny.) “So the music has a very special drive and energy — it just takes off. It’s so listenable.

“Hollywood consciously imitated this — [movie music] is so easy to listen to for a reason. I mean, John Williams and the other Hollywood composers — their success lies in taking classical music and using it to their advantage.”

So on Friday night, give a listen to this Mendelssohn guy’s music. It’ll be like hearing an early draft of the theme from E.T. or Star Wars. They’d let you eat popcorn, except even this concert isn’t that casual.

The Spokane Symphony Orchestra presents “Casual Classics No. 2 — Anatomy of a Composer: Felix Mendelssohn” at the Fox on Friday, Dec. 12, at 8 pm. Tickets: $19-$30. Click here or call 624-1200 or 325-SEAT.