On Monday’s seminar Professor Kahan spoke to us about the life of Felix Mendelssohn. He  is a very famous composer, whose piece was performed by the SI Philharmonic on Sunday. The piece, Mendelssohn’s “Symphony No.3” was (as stated by Professor Kahan) the size of a normal symphony. It consisted of four movements and was true to the Victorian era. The music was emotional but not too emotional, and polite at the same time. This spoke to the Victorian style of modesty as well.

Mendelssohn himself led quite a full life, he had the ability and financial stability to take music lessons . Along with his sister, he was home schooled, and had a rigorous education. They both went on to become gifted musicians.

One of the pieces he composed that was a complete shock to me was “Wedding March.” After hearing a song like that so many times in one’s life, it is easy to forget or to infer about who wrote this piece. To learn that it was by Mendelssohn was an exciting fact to know.

In class we also spoke about the differences between the play “The Heiress” and the novel “Washington Square.” Besides not being able to exclaim the character’s point of view on a subject, the play appears to have relatively few differences in its content . The movie versions, however (of which we saw both), differ greatly. What predominantly stood out to me was in the movie “Washington Square” how the director chose to make Catherine very awkwardly bubbly, and that he chose to make her dress yellow and mismatched  compared to the rich, luxurious red described in the novel. Both choices in my opinion just made it uncomfortable to watch, especially the personality of Catherine. Another factor of this movie that I did not enjoy was how arrogant Morris Townsend seemed, he was less charming than in the first movie we watched, “The Heiress.” Of the two, the first portrayal would have to be my preference.

One last thing that I found interesting was regarding the names of the movies and play. Apparently, “The Heiress” is a title used since it provides the public with more of an idea as to what it is about. When one simply says “Washington Square” unless you know of the place and its reputation, you might as well assume it is a story of a town in Washington.