The Duke Symphony Orchestra honors the music of Felix Mendelssohn. Photo credit: James Warren Childe

DURHAM, N.C. - Duke music professor R. Larry Todd wants to change minds about classical music.

"We have an idea of classical music as ossified, set in stone from the moment it is composed," says Todd, a leading scholar of the works of German composer Felix Mendelssohn. "The composers themselves had a different idea. They saw their works as constantly evolving, always subject to revision as new ideas emerged. It's an opposite view from the way most people today think about classical music."

On Wednesday, Sept. 30, the Duke Symphony Orchestra, directed by Harry Davidson, presents a special program in honor of the 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn's birth. The composer's "Violin Concerto in e minor, Op. 64," will be performed on the same program with Todd's reconstruction of the unfinished work, "Piano Concerto No. 3 in e minor," which inspired the violin piece.

"Mendelssohn never finished 80 percent of the compositions he began," says Todd. "The ‘Piano Concerto No. 3' is among these fragments. Mendelssohn made sketches for the first two movements, but never orchestrated them and never wrote the final, third movement. I always wondered why he abandoned this work, and I found the answer when I realized his sketches dated from the same period as the ‘Violin Concerto in e minor.' The keys are the same and there are many thematic similarities. Even though he abandoned the piano concerto, he incorporated many of its ideas into his famous violin concerto."

Interested in exploring the relationship between the works, Todd orchestrated the first two movements of the piano concerto. Lacking a third movement, he decided to incorporate the final movement of the violin concerto, transcribing the solo violin part for piano.

Todd's reconstruction premiered in Bavaria in January, and a recording by Matthias Kirschnereit was released on Sony's Arte Nova label last spring.

"This project is my playful attempt, as a musicologist, to shed some light on the creative process," says Todd. "I hope the students of the Duke Symphony Orchestra will be interested to hear the similarities between these works and see where some of the ideas in the violin concerto came from and how they evolved."

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Music: A Celebration of the Works of Felix Mendelssohn
Duke Symphony Orchestra with pianist Cicilia Yudha and violinist Eric Pritchard
8 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 30, Baldwin Auditorium
Information: 660-3333