Preparing the music

Preparing the score

0:00Preparing score—

While you listen

Follow the first idea.

At the opening, the second cello starts at the bottom of the score. The other parts pick up its quick theme, one by one.

It begins low: Look to the second cello.
It gathers voices: Follow the successive entries.
It grows in scale: Hear eight parts combine into a larger sound.

Behind the music

In 1825, Mendelssohn was sixteen when he completed the Octet. He dedicated it to his violin teacher, Eduard Rietz, whose birthday was two days later.

Recording, score & sources

Felix Mendelssohn · Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20 · IV. Presto. A real performance by the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio, 27 June 2021. The lanes represent the score's eight string parts.

Recording: Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio, CC BY 3.0. The complete finale, with its natural beginning and ending, transcoded for browser playback.

Score: Alexander Klein / Mutopia Project, based on Julius Rietz's 1877 edition, CC BY-SA 4.0. All 429 bars re-engraved, timed and animated. Precisely measured repeated-note abbreviations are expanded into individual notes; ties remain sustained. Grace notes and trills retain their notation without invented individual attack timings. The original source is preserved.

This adaptation is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0 with the original recording's attribution retained. No performer endorsement is implied. Timing is estimated against the recording; it is not isolated tracking of each instrument. Instrument portraits turn from grayscale to their natural colour while their score part plays, staying in colour through very brief gaps. They indicate playing and resting, not loudness.

Click any instrument row to focus its notation and effects. Click it again, or press Escape outside fullscreen, to restore the ensemble. Visual focus keeps the full recording playing.

Five score-based effects follow the music: entrance rings, repeating-note charges with curved light fans at the ends of longer figures, a shared pulse that opens into a larger bloom at selected ensemble arrivals, directional sparks for rising or falling runs, and a small, soft glow while longer notes sound. Brief returns receive quieter entrance accents, and ordinary trails clear faster in busy passages. Consecutive longer notes receive the same glow; ties continue it without another attack. These cues describe score patterns, not measured loudness or inferred climaxes.

A soft field of light follows the recording’s smoothed overall energy. It reflects the full ensemble, not an individual instrument’s loudness.

Space: play/pause · Left/right arrows: seek five seconds · Home: restart. Tab to a row and press Enter or Space to focus it. Escape restores all instruments outside fullscreen. Keyboard playback controls work when focus is outside a slider or button.

Background and listening notes: Jane Vial Jaffe / Parlance Chamber Concerts.