Whoa Aisle Struttin Origins of Mendelssohn's Wedding March
The Backstory
Wedding March in C major, Op. 61, No. 9
Yo yo yo, it's Felix Mendelssohn here, fam, and this is the backstory of my Wedding March, no cap, so pull up, bruh! You're gonna learn how a tune I cooked up for a stage play ended up at a real church wedding in Tiverton back in 1847, yo, wild, deadass! Once you're done vibin' here, roll to the Trainer , 'cause me and my fellow composers teach ya on this site to recognize our pieces whenever they drop, so go try it, fam!
---
Seventeen And Already Showin' Off
Yo, rewind real quick, fam, 'cause I was a baby-faced 17 in 1826 when I finished the overture to that Shakespeare play, and bruh, teenage me was cookin' like a menace! Zero chill, ya hear me, I was out here droppin' masterpieces before most dudes could even park a horse straight! Then 16 whole years later the king slid into my inbox for the sequel, and I'm like 'Aww yeah, let's run it back, big dawg!' Nobody on the block saw that glow-up comin', no cap, 'cause this sequel turned out way crazier than the opener, deadass!My Calendar Was Straight Up Bonkers
Check it, in 1842 and 1843 I was the music director at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, a gig I'd grabbed back in 1835, so I was swamped, bruh, drownin' in rehearsals! On top of that I was hustlin' for King Frederick William IV in Berlin, but the plans for a music school there totally flopped, which was a major bummer, yo! Did I sit around cryin' in my soup, though, fam? Nah, I flipped the script and founded the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843, 'cause when one door slams ya just kick down another, boom!Potsdam Premiere, Baby
Alright, so the whole Midsummer Night's Dream music first hit the stage in Potsdam on 14 October 1843, and man, that night was electric, no joke! A dude named Ludwig Tieck staged the production, so he was the big-time director callin' the shots, ya feel me? Picture the crowd, all fancy and packed in tight, just waitin' for the good stuff to drop, wow! And yup, my march was sittin' in that score as number 9 out of 14, chillin' like a hidden gem in the middle of the playlist, for real!Meet The Squad, Ophicleide Included
Lemme break down the crew I rolled with, bro: pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns, plus trumpets, three trombones, timpani, triangle, cymbals and strings, whoa! Oh, and I tossed in an ophicleide, which is basically a giant bass brass instrument with a name that sounds like a sneeze, I swear! Imagine yellin' 'Hey, gimme an ophicleide!' across a crowded room, dude, everybody'd think ya lost it, lol! That whole orchestra stacked together makes my march sound like a party that's stompin' right through the roof, boom, dang!Plot Twist: Nobody Was Gettin' Married
Here's the wild part, fam, I never wrote this thing for a real church wedding, not one bit! It was made for the stage, a theater banger for a play, so my brain wasn't even thinkin' about brides in puffy dresses, nope! Folks love to mix that up, but come on, a stage gig turnin' into everybody's wedding anthem is just hilarious, right? Talk about an accidental career pivot, yo, I'm basically a theater kid who got hired by every bride on the planet, snap!Tiverton Did It First, Sorry Royals
Now peep this, 'cause people swear the 1858 royal wedding was the debut, but they're totally off, bruh! The first known real-life use happened on 2 June 1847 in Tiverton, England, where Dorothy Carew married Tom Daniel at St Peter's Church, awww! An organist named Samuel Reay pounded out my tune that day, so he's the unsung hero who kicked off the whole craze, big respect! Princess Victoria and her husband get all the glory, but Dorothy and Tom were the real trendsetters, no doubt, period!I Missed The Hype Train
Sad twist, fam, I died in Leipzig on 4 November 1847, just a few months after that Tiverton wedding, and I was only 38, man! So I never even got to see my little march blow up into the planet's biggest wedding hit, which stings somethin' fierce, ugh! I'd been married to Cécile Jeanrenaud since 1837, and we had five kids, so I left behind a whole crew, y'all! Bottom line, I wrote the thing and the party kicked off without me, which is the ultimate FOMO moment, seriously!Organ Time And The Bridal Chorus Tag Team
These days ya mostly hear my march boomin' on a church organ, and it's usually the recessional, when the newlyweds strut back down the aisle like champs, woo! A lot of the time the organist skips the extra middle sections, so ya get the greatest hits version only, kinda like a shortened playlist, bet! For the bride's entrance, folks often grab Wagner's 'Bridal Chorus' from Lohengrin or Jeremiah Clarke's 'Prince of Denmark's March', so those two are my opening acts, haha! And listen, the 'Here Comes the Bride' tune is Wagner's, not mine, so quit crediting me for it, 'cause I'm gonna lose it, seriously!Liszt And Horowitz Went Full Beast Mode
Get this, Liszt heard my stuff and cooked up a ridiculous piano version in 1849 and 1850 called 'Wedding March and Dance of the Elves', catalogued as S. 410, wowza! That arrangement is so hard it'll make your fingers file a formal complaint, I'm not even kiddin', yikes! Later on Vladimir Horowitz grabbed it and turned it into his own flashy showpiece, which is like remixin' a remix, ya dig? So my little theater tune went from stage to church to piano-shredding legend, and honestly that's a heck of a résumé, props!Paperwork, Printing, And A Rumor Or Two
The first edition of the complete score came out in Leipzig through Breitkopf und Härtel, undated but around 1848, so the receipts are kinda fuzzy, huh? Around 1880 that same publisher put out the march by itself in an edition by Julius Rietz, makin' it a solo single, sweet! The story goes that a Russian Cossack regiment even used it as its regimental march, but nobody's proven that, so take it with a mountain of salt, fam! Anyway, that's the tale, so next time a bride struts down the aisle, give a little nod to the dead composer in the back, ya feel me?---
Yo yo yo, we've hit the finish line, fam, so I gotta ask ya straight up: did ya enjoy learnin' about the backstory of Wedding March, bruh? Real talk, a 17-year-old showoff, a king's rush order and a whole lotta trumpets, that story went crazy hard, no cap, deadass! But hold up, hold up, 'cause I've barely scratched the surface, yo, and there's tons more juicy stuff to dig into about this banger! Like, Liszt flipped my march into a wild piano showpiece, and Horowitz later cooked up his own flashy version, so what's the deal with that, huh, bonkers! Then there's the whole drama about what plays when the bride struts in, 'cause that's often a totally different tune, and folks mix 'em up all day long, dang! So smash those links down below, fam, and go deeper into the rabbit hole, ya hear me, it's gonna be lit! Trust me, your ears are about to throw a bigger party than a whole church full of cousins, peace out, bruh, and congrats to everybody gettin' hitched!