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Felix Mendelssohn

March 13, 2023

"Mendelssohn" redirects here. For other uses, see Mendelssohn (surname) and Mendelssohn (disambiguation).

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy[n 1] (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn,[n 2] was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonies, concertos, piano music, organ music and chamber music. His best-known works include the overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream (which includes his "Wedding March"), the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the oratorio St. Paul, the oratorio Elijah, the overture The Hebrides, the mature Violin Concerto and the String Octet. The melody for the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is also his. Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions.

Portrait of Mendelssohn by the German painter Eduard Magnus, 1846

Mendelssohn's grandfather was the renowned Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, but Felix was initially raised without religion. He was baptised at the age of seven, becoming a Reformed Christian. He was recognised early as a musical prodigy, but his parents were cautious and did not seek to capitalise on his talent. His sister Fanny Mendelssohn received a similar musical education and was a talented composer and pianist in her own right; some of her early songs were published under her brother's name and her Easter Sonata was for a time mistakenly attributed to him after being lost and rediscovered in the 1970s.

Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany, and revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, notably with his performance of the St Matthew Passion in 1829. He became well received in his travels throughout Europe as a composer, conductor and soloist; his ten visits to Britain – during which many of his major works were premiered – form an important part of his adult career. His essentially conservative musical tastes set him apart from more adventurous musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Hector Berlioz. The Leipzig Conservatory,[n 3] which he founded, became a bastion of this anti-radical outlook. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his creative originality has been re-evaluated. He is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era.

Life

Childhood

 
Felix Mendelssohn aged 12 (1821) by Carl Joseph Begas

Felix Mendelssohn was born on 3 February 1809, in Hamburg, at the time an independent city-state,[n 4] in the same house where, a year later, the dedicatee and first performer of his Violin Concerto, Ferdinand David, would be born.[4] Mendelssohn's father, the banker Abraham Mendelssohn, was the son of the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, whose family was prominent in the German Jewish community.[5] Until his baptism at age seven, Mendelssohn was brought up largely without religion.[6] His mother, Lea Salomon, was a member of the Itzig family and a sister of Jakob Salomon Bartholdy.[7] Mendelssohn was the second of four children; his older sister Fanny also displayed exceptional and precocious musical talent.[8]

The family moved to Berlin in 1811, leaving Hamburg in disguise in fear of French reprisal for the Mendelssohn bank's role in breaking Napoleon's Continental System blockade.[9] Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn sought to give their children – Fanny, Felix, Paul and Rebecka – the best education possible. Fanny became a pianist well known in Berlin musical circles as a composer; originally Abraham had thought that she, rather than Felix, would be the more musical. But it was not considered proper, by either Abraham or Felix, for a woman to pursue a career in music, so she remained an active but non-professional musician.[10] Abraham was initially disinclined to allow Felix to follow a musical career until it became clear that he was seriously dedicated.[11]

Mendelssohn grew up in an intellectual environment. Frequent visitors to the salon organised by his parents at their home in Berlin included artists, musicians and scientists, among them Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, and the mathematician Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (whom Mendelssohn's sister Rebecka would later marry).[12] The musician Sarah Rothenburg has written of the household that "Europe came to their living room".[13]

Surname

Abraham Mendelssohn renounced the Jewish religion prior to Felix's birth; he and his wife decided not to have Felix circumcised, in contravention of the Jewish tradition.[14] Felix and his siblings were at first brought up without religious education; on 21 March 1816, they were baptized in a private ceremony in the family's Berlin apartment by the Reformed Protestant minister of the Jerusalem Church,[6] at which time Felix was given the additional names Jakob Ludwig. Abraham and his wife Lea were baptised in 1822, and formally adopted the surname Mendelssohn Bartholdy (which they had used since 1812) for themselves and for their children.[6]

The name Bartholdy was added at the suggestion of Lea's brother, Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, who had inherited a property of this name in Luisenstadt and adopted it as his own surname.[15] In an 1829 letter to Felix, Abraham explained that adopting the Bartholdy name was meant to demonstrate a decisive break with the traditions of his father Moses: "There can no more be a Christian Mendelssohn than there can be a Jewish Confucius". (Letter to Felix of 8 July 1829).[16] On embarking on his musical career, Felix did not entirely drop the name Mendelssohn as Abraham had requested, but in deference to his father signed his letters and had his visiting cards printed using the form 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'.[17] In 1829, his sister Fanny wrote to him of "Bartholdy [...] this name that we all dislike".[18]

Career

Musical education

Mendelssohn began taking piano lessons from his mother when he was six, and at seven was tutored by Marie Bigot in Paris.[19] Later in Berlin, all four Mendelssohn children studied piano with Ludwig Berger, who was himself a former student of Muzio Clementi.[20] From at least May 1819 Mendelssohn (initially with his sister Fanny) studied counterpoint and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin.[21] This was an important influence on his future career. Zelter had almost certainly been recommended as a teacher by his aunt Sarah Levy, who had been a pupil of W. F. Bach and a patron of C. P. E. Bach. Sarah Levy displayed some talent as a keyboard player, and often played with Zelter's orchestra at the Berliner Singakademie; she and the Mendelssohn family were among its leading patrons. Sarah had formed an important collection of Bach family manuscripts which she bequeathed to the Singakademie; Zelter, whose tastes in music were conservative, was also an admirer of the Bach tradition.[22] This undoubtedly played a significant part in forming Felix Mendelssohn's musical tastes, as his works reflect this study of Baroque and early classical music. His fugues and chorales especially reflect a tonal clarity and use of counterpoint reminiscent of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose music influenced him deeply.[23]

Early maturity

 
First page of the manuscript of Mendelssohn's Octet (1825) (now in the US Library of Congress)

Mendelssohn probably made his first public concert appearance at the age of nine, when he participated in a chamber music concert accompanying a horn duo.[24] He was a prolific composer from an early age. As an adolescent, his works were often performed at home with a private orchestra for the associates of his wealthy parents amongst the intellectual elite of Berlin.[25] Between the ages of 12 and 14, Mendelssohn wrote 13 string symphonies for such concerts, and a number of chamber works.[26] His first work, a piano quartet, was published when he was 13. It was probably Abraham Mendelssohn who procured the publication of this quartet by the house of Schlesinger.[27] In 1824 the 15-year-old wrote his first symphony for full orchestra (in C minor, Op. 11).[28]

At age 16 Mendelssohn wrote his String Octet in E-flat major, a work which has been regarded as "mark[ing] the beginning of his maturity as a composer."[29] This Octet and his Overture to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which he wrote a year later in 1826, are the best-known of his early works. (Later, in 1843, he also wrote incidental music for the play, including the famous "Wedding March".) The Overture is perhaps the earliest example of a concert overture – that is, a piece not written deliberately to accompany a staged performance but to evoke a literary theme in performance on a concert platform; this was a genre which became a popular form in musical Romanticism.[30]

In 1824 Mendelssohn studied under the composer and piano virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles, who confessed in his diaries[31] that he had little to teach him. Moscheles and Mendelssohn became close colleagues and lifelong friends. The year 1827 saw the premiere – and sole performance in his lifetime – of Mendelssohn's opera Die Hochzeit des Camacho. The failure of this production left him disinclined to venture into the genre again.[32]

Besides music, Mendelssohn's education included art, literature, languages, and philosophy. He had a particular interest in classical literature[33] and translated Terence's Andria for his tutor Heyse in 1825; Heyse was impressed and had it published in 1826 as a work of "his pupil, F****" [i.e. "Felix" (asterisks as provided in original text)].[34][n 5] This translation also qualified Mendelssohn to study at the University of Berlin, where from 1826 to 1829 he attended lectures on aesthetics by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, on history by Eduard Gans, and on geography by Carl Ritter.[36]

Meeting Goethe and conducting Bach

In 1821 Zelter introduced Mendelssohn to his friend and correspondent, the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (then in his seventies), who was greatly impressed by the child, leading to perhaps the earliest confirmed comparison with Mozart in the following conversation between Goethe and Zelter:

"Musical prodigies ... are probably no longer so rare; but what this little man can do in extemporizing and playing at sight borders the miraculous, and I could not have believed it possible at so early an age." "And yet you heard Mozart in his seventh year at Frankfurt?" said Zelter. "Yes", answered Goethe, "... but what your pupil already accomplishes, bears the same relation to the Mozart of that time that the cultivated talk of a grown-up person bears to the prattle of a child."[37]

Mendelssohn was invited to meet Goethe on several later occasions,[38] and set a number of Goethe's poems to music. His other compositions inspired by Goethe include the overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Op. 27, 1828), and the cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night, Op. 60, 1832).[39]

In 1829, with the backing of Zelter and the assistance of the actor Eduard Devrient, Mendelssohn arranged and conducted a performance in Berlin of Bach's St Matthew Passion. Four years previously his grandmother, Bella Salomon, had given him a copy of the manuscript of this (by then all-but-forgotten) masterpiece.[40] The orchestra and choir for the performance were provided by the Berlin Singakademie. The success of this performance, one of the very few since Bach's death and the first ever outside of Leipzig,[n 6] was the central event in the revival of Bach's music in Germany and, eventually, throughout Europe.[42] It earned Mendelssohn widespread acclaim at the age of 20. It also led to one of the few explicit references which Mendelssohn made to his origins: "To think that it took an actor and a Jew's son to revive the greatest Christian music for the world!"[43][44]

Over the next few years Mendelssohn travelled widely. His first visit to England was in 1829; other places visited during the 1830s included Vienna, Florence, Milan, Rome and Naples, in all of which he met with local and visiting musicians and artists. These years proved to be the germination for some of his most famous works, including the Hebrides Overture and the Scottish and Italian symphonies.[45]

Düsseldorf

On Zelter's death in 1832, Mendelssohn had hopes of succeeding him as conductor of the Singakademie; but at a vote in January 1833 he was defeated for the post by Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen. This may have been because of Mendelssohn's youth, and fear of possible innovations; it was also suspected by some to be attributable to his Jewish ancestry.[46] Following this rebuff, Mendelssohn divided most of his professional time over the next few years between Britain and Düsseldorf, where he was appointed musical director (his first paid post as a musician) in 1833.[47]

In the spring of that year Mendelssohn directed the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in Düsseldorf, beginning with a performance of George Frideric Handel's oratorio Israel in Egypt prepared from the original score, which he had found in London. This precipitated a Handel revival in Germany, similar to the reawakened interest in J. S. Bach following his performance of the St. Matthew Passion.[48] Mendelssohn worked with the dramatist Karl Immermann to improve local theatre standards, and made his first appearance as an opera conductor in Immermann's production of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the end of 1833, where he took umbrage at the audience's protests about the cost of tickets. His frustration at his everyday duties in Düsseldorf, and the city's provincialism, led him to resign his position at the end of 1834. He had offers from both Munich and Leipzig for important musical posts, namely, direction of the Munich Opera, the editorship of the prestigious Leipzig music journal the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, and direction of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; he accepted the latter in 1835.[49][50]

Leipzig and Berlin

 
The composer's study in Mendelssohn House, a museum in Leipzig

In Leipzig, Mendelssohn concentrated on developing the town's musical life by working with the orchestra, the opera house, the Thomanerchor (of which Bach had been a director), and the city's other choral and musical institutions. Mendelssohn's concerts included, in addition to many of his own works, three series of "historical concerts" featuring music of the eighteenth century, and a number of works by his contemporaries.[51] He was deluged by offers of music from rising and would-be composers; among these was Richard Wagner, who submitted his early Symphony, the score of which, to Wagner's disgust, Mendelssohn lost or mislaid.[52] Mendelssohn also revived interest in the music of Franz Schubert. Robert Schumann discovered the manuscript of Schubert's Ninth Symphony and sent it to Mendelssohn, who promptly premiered it in Leipzig on 21 March 1839, more than a decade after Schubert's death.[53]

A landmark event during Mendelssohn's Leipzig years was the premiere of his oratorio Paulus, (the English version of this is known as St. Paul), given at the Lower Rhenish Festival in Düsseldorf in 1836, shortly after the death of the composer's father, which affected him greatly; Felix wrote that he would "never cease to endeavour to gain his approval ... although I can no longer enjoy it".[54] St. Paul seemed to many of Mendelssohn's contemporaries to be his finest work, and sealed his European reputation.[55]

When Friedrich Wilhelm IV came to the Prussian throne in 1840 with ambitions to develop Berlin as a cultural centre (including the establishment of a music school, and reform of music for the church), the obvious choice to head these reforms was Mendelssohn. He was reluctant to undertake the task, especially in the light of his existing strong position in Leipzig.[56] Mendelssohn nonetheless spent some time in Berlin, writing some church music such as Die Deutsche Liturgie, and, at the King's request, music for productions of Sophocles's Antigone (1841 – an overture and seven pieces) and Oedipus at Colonus (1845), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1843) and Racine's Athalie (1845).[n 7] But the funds for the school never materialised, and many of the court's promises to Mendelssohn regarding finances, title, and concert programming were broken. He was therefore not displeased to have the excuse to return to Leipzig.[58]

In 1843 Mendelssohn founded a major music school – the Leipzig Conservatory, now the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy".[n 8] where he persuaded Ignaz Moscheles and Robert Schumann to join him. Other prominent musicians, including the string players Ferdinand David and Joseph Joachim and the music theorist Moritz Hauptmann, also became staff members.[59] After Mendelssohn's death in 1847, his musically conservative tradition was carried on when Moscheles succeeded him as head of the Conservatory.[60]

Mendelssohn in Britain

Mendelssohn first visited Britain in 1829, where Moscheles, who had already settled in London, introduced him to influential musical circles. In the summer he visited Edinburgh, where he met among others the composer John Thomson, whom he later recommended for the post of Professor of Music at Edinburgh University.[61] He made ten visits to Britain, lasting about 20 months; he won a strong following, which enabled him to make a good impression on British musical life. [62] He composed and performed, and also edited for British publishers the first critical editions of oratorios of Handel and of the organ music of J. S. Bach. Scotland inspired two of his most famous works: the overture The Hebrides (also known as Fingal's Cave); and the Scottish Symphony (Symphony No. 3).[63] An English Heritage blue plaque commemorating Mendelssohn's residence in London was placed at 4 Hobart Place in Belgravia, London, in 2013.[64]

His protégé, the British composer and pianist William Sterndale Bennett, worked closely with Mendelssohn during this period, both in London and Leipzig. He first heard Bennett perform in London in 1833 aged 17.[65][n 9] Bennett appeared with Mendelssohn in concerts in Leipzig throughout the 1836/1837 season.[67]

On Mendelssohn's eighth British visit in the summer of 1844, he conducted five of the Philharmonic concerts in London, and wrote: "[N]ever before was anything like this season – we never went to bed before half-past one, every hour of every day was filled with engagements three weeks beforehand, and I got through more music in two months than in all the rest of the year." (Letter to Rebecka Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Soden, 22 July 1844).[68] On subsequent visits Mendelssohn met Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert, himself a composer, who both greatly admired his music.[69][70]

Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah was commissioned by the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival and premiered on 26 August 1846, at the Town Hall, Birmingham. It was composed to a German text translated into English by William Bartholomew, who authored and translated many of Mendelssohn's works during his time in England.[71][72]

 
Mendelssohn's gravestone at the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof

On his last visit to Britain in 1847, Mendelssohn was the soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 and conducted his own Scottish Symphony with the Philharmonic Orchestra before the Queen and Prince Albert.[73]

Death

Mendelssohn suffered from poor health in the final years of his life, probably aggravated by nervous problems and overwork. A final tour of England left him exhausted and ill, and the death of his sister, Fanny, on 14 May 1847, caused him further distress. Less than six months later, on 4 November, aged 38, Mendelssohn died in Leipzig after a series of strokes.[74] His grandfather Moses, Fanny, and both his parents had all died from similar apoplexies.[75][n 10] Although he had been generally meticulous in the management of his affairs, he died intestate.[77]

Mendelssohn's funeral was held at the Paulinerkirche, Leipzig, and he was buried at the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof I in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The pallbearers included Moscheles, Schumann and Niels Gade.[78] Mendelssohn had once described death, in a letter to a stranger, as a place "where it is to be hoped there is still music, but no more sorrow or partings."[79]

Personal life

Personality

 
View of Lucerne – watercolour by Mendelssohn, 1847

While Mendelssohn was often presented as equable, happy, and placid in temperament, particularly in the detailed family memoirs published by his nephew Sebastian Hensel after the composer's death,[80] this was misleading. The music historian R. Larry Todd notes "the remarkable process of idealization" of Mendelssohn's character "that crystallized in the memoirs of the composer's circle", including Hensel's.[81] The nickname "discontented Polish count" was given to Mendelssohn on account of his aloofness, and he referred to the epithet in his letters.[82] He was frequently given to fits of temper which occasionally led to collapse. Devrient mentions that on one occasion in the 1830s, when his wishes had been crossed, "his excitement was increased so fearfully ... that when the family was assembled ... he began to talk incoherently in English. The stern voice of his father at last checked the wild torrent of words; they took him to bed, and a profound sleep of twelve hours restored him to his normal state".[83] Such fits may be related to his early death.[75]

Mendelssohn was an enthusiastic visual artist who worked in pencil and watercolour, a skill which he enjoyed throughout his life.[84][85] His correspondences indicate that he could write with considerable wit in German and English – these letters are sometimes accompanied by humorous sketches and cartoons.[86]

Religion

On 21 March 1816, at the age of seven years, Mendelssohn was baptised with his brother and sisters in a home ceremony by Johann Jakob Stegemann, minister of the Evangelical congregation of Berlin's Jerusalem Church and New Church.[6] Although Mendelssohn was a conforming Christian as a member of the Reformed Church,[n 11] he was both conscious and proud of his Jewish ancestry and notably of his connection with his grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn. He was the prime mover in proposing to the publisher Heinrich Brockhaus a complete edition of Moses's works, which continued with the support of his uncle, Joseph Mendelssohn.[88] Felix was notably reluctant, either in his letters or conversation, to comment on his innermost beliefs; his friend Devrient wrote that "[his] deep convictions were never uttered in intercourse with the world; only in rare and intimate moments did they ever appear, and then only in the slightest and most humorous allusions".[89] Thus for example in a letter to his sister Rebecka, Mendelssohn rebukes her complaint about an unpleasant relative: "What do you mean by saying you are not hostile to Jews? I hope this was a joke [...] It is really sweet of you that you do not despise your family, isn't it?"[90] Some modern scholars have devoted considerable energy to demonstrate either that Mendelssohn was deeply sympathetic to his ancestors' Jewish beliefs, or that he was hostile to this and sincere in his Christian beliefs.[n 12]

Mendelssohn and his contemporaries

 
Giacomo Meyerbeer by Josef Kriehuber, 1847

Throughout his life Mendelssohn was wary of the more radical musical developments undertaken by some of his contemporaries. He was generally on friendly, if sometimes somewhat cool, terms with Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, and Giacomo Meyerbeer, but in his letters expresses his frank disapproval of their works, for example writing of Liszt that his compositions were "inferior to his playing, and […] only calculated for virtuosos";[92] of Berlioz's overture Les francs-juges "[T]he orchestration is such a frightful muddle [...] that one ought to wash one's hands after handling one of his scores";[93] and of Meyerbeer's opera Robert le diable "I consider it ignoble", calling its villain Bertram "a poor devil".[94] When his friend the composer Ferdinand Hiller suggested in conversation to Mendelssohn that he looked rather like Meyerbeer – they were actually distant cousins, both descendants of Rabbi Moses Isserles – Mendelssohn was so upset that he immediately went to get a haircut to differentiate himself.[95]

In particular, Mendelssohn seems to have regarded Paris and its music with the greatest of suspicion and an almost puritanical distaste. Attempts made during his visit there to interest him in Saint-Simonianism ended in embarrassing scenes.[96] It is significant that the only musician with whom Mendelssohn remained a close personal friend, Ignaz Moscheles, was of an older generation and equally conservative in outlook. Moscheles preserved this conservative attitude at the Leipzig Conservatory until his own death in 1870.[60]

Marriage and children

 
Mendelssohn's wife Cécile (1846) by Eduard Magnus
 
Daguerreotype of Jenny Lind, 1850

Mendelssohn married Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud (10 October 1817 – 25 September 1853), the daughter of a French Reformed Church clergyman, on 28 March 1837.[97] The couple had five children: Carl, Marie, Paul, Lili and Felix August. The second youngest child, Felix August, contracted measles in 1844 and was left with impaired health; he died in 1851.[98] The eldest, Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdy (7 February 1838 – 23 February 1897), became a historian, and Professor of History at Heidelberg and Freiburg universities; he died in a psychiatric institution in Freiburg aged 59.[99] Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1841–1880) was a noted chemist and pioneered the manufacture of aniline dye. Marie married Victor Benecke and lived in London. Lili married Adolf Wach, later Professor of Law at Leipzig University.[100]

The family papers inherited by Marie's and Lili's children form the basis of the extensive collection of Mendelssohn manuscripts, including the so-called "Green Books" of his correspondence, now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.[101] Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy died less than six years after her husband, on 25 September 1853.[102]

Jenny Lind

Mendelssohn became close to the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, whom he met in October 1844. Papers confirming their relationship had not been made public.[103][n 13] In 2013, George Biddlecombe confirmed in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association that "The Committee of the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation possesses material indicating that Mendelssohn wrote passionate love letters to Jenny Lind entreating her to join him in an adulterous relationship and threatening suicide as a means of exerting pressure upon her, and that these letters were destroyed on being discovered after her death."[106]

Mendelssohn met and worked with Lind many times, and started an opera, Lorelei, for her, based on the legend of the Lorelei Rhine maidens; the opera was unfinished at his death. He is said to have tailored the aria "Hear Ye Israel", in his oratorio Elijah, to Lind's voice, although she did not sing the part until after his death, at a concert in December 1848.[107] In 1847, Mendelssohn attended a London performance of Meyerbeer's Robert le diable – an opera that musically he despised – in order to hear Lind's British debut, in the role of Alice. The music critic Henry Chorley, who was with him, wrote: "I see as I write the smile with which Mendelssohn, whose enjoyment of Mdlle. Lind's talent was unlimited, turned round and looked at me, as if a load of anxiety had been taken off his mind. His attachment to Mdlle. Lind's genius as a singer was unbounded, as was his desire for her success."[108]

Upon Mendelssohn's death, Lind wrote: "[He was] the only person who brought fulfillment to my spirit, and almost as soon as I found him I lost him again." In 1849, she established the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation, which makes an award to a young resident British composer every two years in Mendelssohn's memory. The first winner of the scholarship, in 1856, was Arthur Sullivan, then aged 14. In 1869, Lind erected a plaque in Mendelssohn's memory at his birthplace in Hamburg.[103][109]

Music

See also: List of compositions by Felix Mendelssohn and Category:Compositions by Felix Mendelssohn

Composer

Style

 
Mendelssohn plays to Goethe, 1830, by Moritz Oppenheim, 1864

Something of Mendelssohn's intense attachment to his personal vision of music is conveyed in his comments to a correspondent who suggested converting some of the Songs Without Words into lieder by adding texts: "What [the] music I love expresses to me, are not thoughts that are too indefinite for me to put into words, but on the contrary, too definite."[n 14][110]

Schumann wrote of Mendelssohn that he was "the Mozart of the nineteenth century, the most brilliant musician, the one who most clearly sees through the contradictions of the age and for the first time reconciles them."[111] This appreciation brings to the fore two features that characterized Mendelssohn's compositions and his compositional process. First, that his inspiration for musical style was rooted in his technical mastery and his interpretation of the style of previous masters,[112] although he certainly recognized and developed the strains of early Romanticism in the music of Beethoven and Weber.[113] The historian James Garratt writes that from his early career, "the view emerged that Mendelssohn's engagement with early music was a defining aspect of his creativity."[114] This approach was recognized by Mendelssohn himself, who wrote that, in his meetings with Goethe, he gave the poet "historical exhibitions" at the keyboard; "every morning, for about an hour, I have to play a variety of works by great composers in chronological order, and must explain to him how they contributed to the advance of music."[115] Secondly, it highlights that Mendelssohn was more concerned to reinvigorate the musical legacy which he inherited, rather than to replace it with new forms and styles, or with the use of more exotic orchestration.[116] In these ways he differed significantly from many of his contemporaries in the early Romantic period, such as Wagner, Berlioz and Franz Liszt.[117] Whilst Mendelssohn admired Liszt's virtuosity at the keyboard, he found his music jejune. Berlioz said of Mendelssohn that he had "perhaps studied the music of the dead too closely."[113]

The musicologist Greg Vitercik considers that, while "Mendelssohn's music only rarely aspires to provoke", the stylistic innovations evident from his earliest works solve some of the contradictions between classical forms and the sentiments of Romanticism. The expressiveness of Romantic music presented a problem in adherence to sonata form; the final (recapitulation) section of a movement could seem, in the context of Romantic style, a bland element without passion or soul. Furthermore, it could be seen as a pedantic delay before reaching the emotional climax of a movement, which in the classical tradition had tended to be at the transition from the development section of the movement to the recapitulation; whereas Berlioz and other "modernists" sought to have the emotional climax at the end of a movement, if necessary by adding an extended coda to follow the recapitulation proper. Mendelssohn's solution to this problem was less sensational than Berlioz's approach, but was rooted in changing the structural balance of the formal components of the movement. Thus typically in a Mendelssohnian movement, the development-recapitulation transition might not be strongly marked, and the recapitulation section would be harmonically or melodically varied so as not to be a direct copy of the opening, exposition, section; this allowed a logical movement towards a final climax. Vitercik summarizes the effect as "to assimilate the dynamic trajectory of 'external form' to the 'logical' unfolding of the story of the theme".[118]

Richard Taruskin wrote that, although Mendelssohn produced works of extraordinary mastery at a very early age,

he never outgrew his precocious youthful style. [...] He remained stylistically conservative [...] feeling no need to attract attention with a display of "revolutionary" novelty. Throughout his short career he remained comfortably faithful to the musical status quo – that is, the "classical" forms, as they were already thought of by his time. His version of romanticism, already evident in his earliest works, consisted in musical "pictorialism" of a fairly conventional, objective nature (though exquisitely wrought).[119]

Early works

The young Mendelssohn was greatly influenced in his childhood by the music of both J. S. Bach and C. P. E. Bach, and of Beethoven, Joseph Haydn and Mozart; traces of these composers can be seen in the 13 early string symphonies. These were written from 1821 to 1823, when he was between the ages of 12 and 14, principally for performance in the Mendelssohn household, and not published or publicly performed until long after his death.[120][121]

His first published works were his three piano quartets (1822–1825; Op. 1 in C minor, Op. 2 in F minor and Op. 3 in B minor);[122] but his capacities are especially revealed in a group of works of his early maturity: the String Octet (1825), the Overture A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826), which in its finished form also owes much to the influence of Adolf Bernhard Marx, at the time a close friend of Mendelssohn, and the two early string quartets: Op. 12 (1829) and Op. 13 (1827), which both show a remarkable grasp of the techniques and ideas of Beethoven's last quartets that Mendelssohn had been closely studying.[123] These four works show an intuitive command of form, harmony, counterpoint, colour, and compositional technique, which in the opinion of R. Larry Todd justifies claims frequently made that Mendelssohn's precocity exceeded even that of Mozart in its intellectual grasp.[124]

A 2009 survey by the BBC of 16 music critics opined that Mendelssohn was the greatest composing prodigy in the history of Western classical music.[125]

Symphonies

 
Portrait of Mendelssohn by Wilhelm Hensel, 1847

Mendelssohn's mature symphonies are numbered approximately in the order of publication, rather than the order in which they were composed. The order of composition is: 1, 5, 4, 2, 3.[126] The placement of No. 3 in this sequence is problematic because he worked on it for over a decade, starting the sketches soon after he began work on No. 5 but completing it after both Nos. 5 and 4.[127]

The Symphony No. 1 in C minor for full orchestra was written in 1824, when Mendelssohn was aged 15. This work is experimental, showing the influences of Beethoven and Carl Maria von Weber.[128] Mendelssohn conducted the symphony on his first visit to London in 1829, with the orchestra of the Philharmonic Society. For the third movement he substituted an orchestration of the Scherzo from his Octet. In this form the piece was a success, and laid the foundations of his British reputation.[129]

During 1829 and 1830 Mendelssohn wrote his Symphony No. 5, known as the Reformation. It celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Reformation. Mendelssohn remained dissatisfied with the work and did not allow publication of the score.[130]

Mendelssohn's travels in Italy inspired him to compose the Symphony No. 4 in A major, known as the Italian Symphony. He conducted the premiere in 1833, but did not allow the score to be published during his lifetime, as he continually sought to rewrite it.[131]

The Scottish Symphony (Symphony No. 3 in A minor) was written and revised intermittently between 1829 (when Mendelssohn noted down the opening theme during a visit to Holyrood Palace)[132] and 1842, when it was given its premiere in Leipzig, the last of his symphonies to be premiered in public. This piece evokes Scotland's atmosphere in the ethos of Romanticism, but does not employ any identified Scottish folk melodies.[133]

He wrote the symphony-cantata Lobgesang (Hymn of Praise) in B-flat major, posthumously named Symphony No. 2, to mark the celebrations in Leipzig of the supposed 400th anniversary of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg; the first performance took place on 25 June 1840.[134]

Other orchestral music

 
Trumpet part (top) and the main theme in the violin part (bottom), of the "Wedding March" from Mendelssohn's Op. 61

Mendelssohn wrote the concert overture The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) in 1830, inspired by visits to Scotland around the end of the 1820s. He visited Fingal's Cave, on the Hebridean isle of Staffa, as part of his Grand Tour of Europe, and was so impressed that he scribbled the opening theme of the overture on the spot, including it in a letter he wrote home the same evening.[135] He wrote other concert overtures, notably Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt, 1828), inspired by a pair of poems by Goethe[136] and The Fair Melusine (Die schöne Melusine) (1830).[137] A contemporary writer considered these works as "perhaps the most beautiful overtures that, so far, we Germans possess".[138]

Mendelssohn also wrote in 1839 an overture to Ruy Blas, commissioned for a charity performance of Victor Hugo's drama (which the composer hated).[139] His incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream (Op. 61), including the well-known "Wedding March", was written in 1843, seventeen years after the Overture.[140]

Concertos

 
Violin Concerto Op. 64, main theme of second movement

The Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844), was written for Ferdinand David. David, who had worked closely with Mendelssohn during the piece's preparation, gave the premiere of the concerto on his Guarneri violin.[141] Joseph Joachim called it one of the four great violin concertos along with those of Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruch.[142]

Mendelssohn also wrote a lesser-known, early concerto for violin and strings in D minor (1822); four piano concertos ("no. 0" in A minor, 1822; 1 in G minor, 1831; 2 in D minor, 1837; and 3 in E minor, a posthumously published fragment from 1844); two concertos for two pianos and orchestra (E major, which he wrote at 14 [1823], and A-flat major, at 15 [1824]); and another double concerto, for violin and piano (1823). In addition, there are several single-movement works for soloist and orchestra. Those for piano are the Rondo Brillante of 1834, the Capriccio Brillante of 1832, and the Serenade and Allegro Giocoso of 1838.[126] He also wrote two concertinos (Konzertstücke), Op. 113 and 114, originally for clarinet, basset horn and piano; Op. 113 was orchestrated by the composer.[143]

Chamber music

Mendelssohn's mature output contains numerous chamber works, many of which display an emotional intensity lacking in some of his larger works. In particular, his String Quartet No. 6, the last of his string quartets and his last major work – written following the death of his sister Fanny – is, in the opinion of the historian Peter Mercer-Taylor, exceptionally powerful and eloquent.[144] Other mature works include two string quintets; sonatas for the clarinet, cello, viola and violin; and two piano trios.[126] For the Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Mendelssohn uncharacteristically took the advice of his fellow composer, Ferdinand Hiller, and rewrote the piano part in a more Romantic, "Schumannesque" style, considerably heightening its effect.[145]

Piano music

 
Advertisement for the Organ Sonatas in the Musical World, 24 July 1845

The musicologist Glenn Stanley observes that "[u]nlike Brahms, unlike his contemporaries Schumann, Chopin and Liszt, and unlike [his] revered past masters....Mendelssohn did not regard the piano as a preferred medium for his most significant artistic statements".[146] Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words (Lieder ohne Worte), eight cycles each containing six lyric pieces (two published posthumously), remain his most famous solo piano compositions. They became standard parlour recital items even during the composer's lifetime,[147] and their overwhelming popularity, according to Todd, has itself caused many critics to underrate their musical value.[148] As example, Charles Rosen equivocally commented, despite noting "how much beautiful music they contain", that "[i]t is not true that they are insipid, but they might as well be."[149] During the 19th century, composers who were inspired to produce similar pieces of their own included Charles-Valentin Alkan (his five sets of Chants, each ending with a barcarolle) and Anton Rubinstein.[150]

Other notable piano works by Mendelssohn include his Variations sérieuses, Op. 54 (1841), the Rondo Capriccioso, the set of six Preludes and Fugues, Op. 35 (written between 1832 and 1837), and the Seven Characteristic Pieces, Op. 7 (1827).[126]

Organ music

Mendelssohn played and composed for organ from the age of 11 until his death. His primary organ works are the Three Preludes and Fugues, Op. 37 (1837), and the Six Sonatas, Op. 65 (1845), of which Eric Werner wrote "next to Bach's works, Mendelssohn's Organ Sonatas belong to the required repertory of all organists".[151]

Opera

Mendelssohn wrote some Singspiele for family performance in his youth. His opera Die beiden Neffen (The Two Nephews) was rehearsed for him on his 15th birthday.[40] 1829 saw Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde (Son and Stranger or Return of the Roamer), a comedy of mistaken identity written in honour of his parents' silver anniversary and unpublished during his lifetime. In 1825 he wrote a more sophisticated work, Die Hochzeit des Camacho (Camacho's Wedding), based on an episode in Don Quixote, for public consumption. It was produced in Berlin in 1827, but coolly received. Mendelssohn left the theatre before the conclusion of the first performance, and subsequent performances were cancelled.[152]

Although he never abandoned the idea of composing a full opera, and considered many subjects – including that of the Nibelung saga later adapted by Wagner, about which he corresponded with his sister Fanny[153] – he never wrote more than a few pages of sketches for any project. In Mendelssohn's last years the opera manager Benjamin Lumley tried to contract him to write an opera from Shakespeare's The Tempest on a libretto by Eugène Scribe, and even announced it as forthcoming in 1847, the year of Mendelssohn's death. The libretto was eventually set by Fromental Halévy.[154] At his death Mendelssohn left some sketches for an opera on the story of the Lorelei.[155]

Choral works

 
Part of the overture to Elijah arranged by Mendelssohn for piano duet (manuscript in the Library of Congress)

Mendelssohn's two large biblical oratorios, St Paul in 1836 and Elijah in 1846, are greatly influenced by J. S. Bach. The surviving fragments of an unfinished oratorio, Christus, consist of a recitative, a chorus "There Shall a Star Come out of Jacob", and a male voice trio.[156]

Strikingly different is the more overtly Romantic Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night), a setting for chorus and orchestra of a ballad by Goethe describing pagan rituals of the Druids in the Harz mountains in the early days of Christianity. This score has been seen by the scholar Heinz-Klaus Metzger as a "Jewish protest against the domination of Christianity".[157]

Mendelssohn wrote five settings from "The Book of Psalms" for chorus and orchestra. Schumann opined in 1837 that his version of Psalm 42 was the "highest point that he [Mendelssohn] reached as a composer for the church. Indeed the highest point recent church music has reached at all."[158]

Mendelssohn also wrote many smaller-scale sacred works for unaccompanied choir, such as a setting of Psalm 100, Jauchzet dem Herrn, alle Welt, and for choir with organ. Most are written in or translated into English. Among the most famous is Hear My Prayer, whose second half contains "O for the Wings of a Dove", which became often performed as a separate item. The piece is written for full choir, organ, and a treble or soprano soloist. Mendelssohn's biographer Todd comments, "The very popularity of the anthem in England [...] later exposed it to charges of superficiality from those contemptuous of Victorian mores."[159]

A hymn tune Mendelssohn – an adaptation by William Hayman Cummings of a melody from Mendelssohn's cantata Festgesang (Festive Hymn), a secular 1840s composition, which Mendelssohn felt unsuited to sacred music – has become the standard tune for Charles Wesley's popular Christmas hymn "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing".[134]

Songs

Mendelssohn wrote many songs, both for solo voice and for duet, with piano. It has been asserted that from 1819 (when he was 10) until his death there was "scarcely a single month in which he was not occupied with song composition".[160] Many of these songs are simple, or slightly modified, strophic settings.[161] Some, such as his best-known song "Auf Flügeln des Gesanges" ("On Wings of Song"), became popular.[162] The scholar Susan Youens comments "If [Mendelssohn]'s emotional range in lied was narrower than Schubert's, that is hardly surprising: Schubert composed many more songs than Mendelssohn across a wider spectrum", and whilst Schubert had a declared intent to modernize the song style of his day, "[t]his was not Mendelssohn's mission."[163]

A number of songs written by Mendelssohn's sister Fanny originally appeared under her brother's name; this may have been partly due to the prejudice of the family, and partly to her own retiring nature.[164] In 1842, this resulted in an embarrassing moment when Queen Victoria, receiving Felix at Buckingham Palace, expressed her intention of singing to the composer her favourite of his songs, Italien (to words by Franz Grillparzer), which Felix confessed was by Fanny.[165][166]

Performer

During his lifetime, Mendelssohn became renowned as a keyboard performer, both on the piano and organ. One of his obituarists noted: "First and chiefest we esteem his pianoforte-playing, with its amazing elasticity of touch, rapidity, and power; next his scientific and vigorous organ playing [...] his triumphs on these instruments are fresh in public recollection.[167] In his concerts and recitals Mendelssohn performed works by some of his German predecessors, notably Carl Maria von Weber, Beethoven and J.S. Bach,[168] whose organ music he brought back into the repertoire "virtually alone".[169]

Mendelssohn admired the grand pianos of the Viennese maker Conrad Graf; he acquired one in 1832 which he used in the family house and recitals in Berlin, and later another for use in Düsseldorf.[170] In private and public performances, Mendelssohn was celebrated for his improvisations. On one occasion in London, when asked by the soprano Maria Malibran after a recital to extemporise, he improvised a piece which included the melodies of all the songs she had sung. The music publisher Victor Novello, who was present, remarked "He has done some things that seem to me impossible, even after I have heard them done."[171] At another recital in 1837, where Mendelssohn played the piano for a singer, Robert Schumann ignored the soprano and wrote "Mendelssohn accompanied like a God."[172]

Conductor

Mendelssohn was a noted conductor, both of his own works and of those by other composers. At his London debut in 1829, he was noted for his innovatory use of a baton (then a great novelty).[173] But his novelty also extended to taking great care over tempo, dynamics and the orchestral players themselves – both rebuking them when they were recalcitrant and praising them when they satisfied him.[174] It was his success while conducting at the Lower Rhine music festival of 1836 that led to him taking his first paid professional position as director at Düsseldorf. Among those appreciating Mendelssohn's conducting was Hector Berlioz, who in 1843, invited to Leipzig, exchanged batons with Mendelssohn, writing "When the Great Spirit sends us to hunt in the land of souls, may our warriors hang our tomahawks side by side at the door of the council chamber".[175] At Leipzig, Mendelssohn led the Gewandhaus Orchestra to great heights; although concentrating on the great composers of the past (already becoming canonised as the "classics") he also included new music by Schumann, Berlioz, Gade and many others, as well as his own music.[176] One critic who was not impressed was Richard Wagner; he accused Mendelssohn of using tempos in his performances of Beethoven symphonies that were far too fast.[177]

Editor

Mendelssohn's interest in baroque music was not limited to the Bach St Matthew Passion which he had revived in 1829. He was concerned in preparing and editing such music, whether for performance or for publication, to be as close as possible to the original intentions of the composers, including wherever possible a close study of early editions and manuscripts. This could lead him into conflict with publishers; for instance, his edition of Handel's oratorio Israel in Egypt for the London Handel Society (1845) evoked an often contentious correspondence, with Mendelssohn refusing for example to add dynamics where not given by Handel, or to add parts for trombones. Mendelssohn also edited a number of Bach's works for organ, and apparently discussed with Robert Schumann the possibility of producing a complete Bach edition.[178]

Teacher

Although Mendelssohn attributed great importance to musical education, and made a substantial commitment to the Conservatoire he founded in Leipzig, he did not greatly enjoy teaching and took only a very few private pupils who he believed had notable qualities.[179] Such students included the composer William Sterndale Bennett, the pianist Camille-Marie Stamaty, the violinist and composer Julius Eichberg, and Walther von Goethe (grandson of the poet).[180] At the Leipzig Conservatoire Mendelssohn taught classes in composition and ensemble playing.[181]

Reputation and legacy

The first century

 
The reconstructed Mendelssohn monument near Leipzig's St. Thomas Church, dedicated in 2008[182]

In the immediate wake of Mendelssohn's death, he was mourned both in Germany and England. However, the conservative strain in Mendelssohn, which set him apart from some of his more flamboyant contemporaries, bred a corollary condescension amongst some of them toward his music. Mendelssohn's relations with Berlioz, Liszt and others had been uneasy and equivocal. Listeners who had raised questions about Mendelssohn's talent included Heinrich Heine, who wrote in 1836 after hearing the oratorio St. Paul that his work was

characterized by a great, strict, very serious seriousness, a determined, almost importunate tendency to follow classical models, the finest, cleverest calculation, sharp intelligence and, finally, complete lack of naïveté. But is there in art any originality of genius without naïveté?[183][184]

Such criticism of Mendelssohn for his very ability – which could be characterised negatively as facility – was taken to further lengths by Richard Wagner. Mendelssohn's success, his popularity and his Jewish origins irked Wagner sufficiently to damn Mendelssohn with faint praise, three years after his death, in an anti-Jewish pamphlet Das Judenthum in der Musik:[185]

[Mendelssohn] has shown us that a Jew may have the amplest store of specific talents, may own the finest and most varied culture, the highest and tenderest sense of honour – yet without all these pre-eminences helping him, were it but one single time, to call forth in us that deep, that heart-searching effect which we await from art [...] The washiness and the whimsicality of our present musical style has been [...] pushed to its utmost pitch by Mendelssohn's endeavour to speak out a vague, an almost nugatory Content as interestingly and spiritedly as possible.[186][n 15]

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche expressed consistent admiration for Mendelssohn's music, in contrast to his general scorn for "Teutonic" Romanticism:

At any rate, the whole music of romanticism [e.g. Schumann and Wagner] ... was second-rate music from the very start, and real musicians took little notice of it. Things were different with Felix Mendelssohn, that halcyon master who, thanks to his easier, purer, happier soul, was quickly honoured and just as quickly forgotten, as a lovely incident in German music.[187]

Some readers, however, have interpreted Nietzsche's characterization of Mendelssohn as a 'lovely incident' as condescending.[188]

In the 20th century the Nazi regime and its Reichsmusikkammer cited Mendelssohn's Jewish origin in banning performance and publication of his works, even asking Nazi-approved composers to rewrite incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream (Carl Orff obliged).[189] Under the Nazis, "Mendelssohn was presented as a dangerous 'accident' of music history, who played a decisive role in rendering German music in the 19th century 'degenerate'."[190] The German Mendelssohn Scholarship for students at the Leipzig Conservatoire was discontinued in 1934 (and not revived until 1963). The monument dedicated to Mendelssohn erected in Leipzig in 1892 was removed by the Nazis in 1936. A replacement was erected in 2008.[182] The bronze statue of Mendelssohn by Clemens Buscher outside the Düsseldorf Opera House was also removed and destroyed by the Nazis in 1936. A replacement was erected in 2012. Mendelssohn's grave remained unmolested during the Nazi years.[191][192]

Mendelssohn's reputation in Britain remained high throughout the 19th century. Prince Albert inscribed (in German) a libretto for the oratorio Elijah in 1847: "To the noble artist who, surrounded by the Baal-worship of false art, has been able, like a second Elijah, through genius and study, to remain true to the service of true art."[193] In 1851 an adulatory novel by the teenaged Elizabeth Sara Sheppard was published, Charles Auchester.[194] The book features as its leading character the "Chevalier Seraphel", an idealized portrait of Mendelssohn, and remained in print for nearly 80 years.[195] In 1854 Queen Victoria requested that the Crystal Palace include a statue of Mendelssohn when it was rebuilt.[n 16] Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" from A Midsummer Night's Dream was played at the wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Victoria, The Princess Royal, to Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia in 1858, and it remains popular at marriage ceremonies.[197] Mendelssohn's pupil Sterndale Bennett was a major force in British musical education until his death in 1875, and a great upholder of his master's traditions; he numbered among his pupils many of the next generation of English composers, including Sullivan, Hubert Parry and Francis Edward Bache.[198]

By the early twentieth century, many critics, including Bernard Shaw, began to condemn Mendelssohn's music for its association with Victorian cultural insularity; Shaw in particular complained of the composer's "kid-glove gentility, his conventional sentimentality, and his despicable oratorio-mongering".[199] In the 1950s the scholar Wilfrid Mellers complained of Mendelssohn's "spurious religiosity which reflected the element of unconscious humbug in our morality".[200] A contrasting opinion came from the pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni, who considered Mendelssohn "a master of undisputed greatness" and "an heir of Mozart".[201] Busoni, like earlier virtuosi such as Anton Rubinstein[202] and Charles-Valentin Alkan,[203] regularly included Mendelssohn's piano works in his recitals.

Modern opinions

 
Felix Mendelssohn by Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, 1834

Appreciation of Mendelssohn's work has developed since the mid-20th century, together with the publication of a number of biographies placing his achievements in context.[204] Mercer-Taylor comments on the irony that "this broad-based reevaluation of Mendelssohn's music is made possible, in part, by a general disintegration of the idea of a musical canon", an idea which Mendelssohn "as a conductor, pianist and scholar" had done so much to establish.[205] The critic H. L. Mencken concluded that, if Mendelssohn indeed missed true greatness, he missed it "by a hair".[206]

Charles Rosen, in a chapter on Mendelssohn in his 1995 book The Romantic Generation, both praises and criticizes the composer. He calls him "the greatest child prodigy the history of Western music has ever known", whose command at age 16 surpassed that of Mozart or Chopin at 19, the possessor at an early age of a "control of large-scale structure unsurpassed by any composer of his generation", and a "genius" with a "profound" comprehension of Beethoven. Rosen believes that in the composer's later years, without losing his craft or genius, he "renounced ... his daring"; but he calls Mendelssohn's relatively late Violin Concerto in E minor "the most successful synthesis of the Classical concerto tradition and the Romantic virtuoso form". Rosen considers the "Fugue in E minor" (later included in Mendelssohn's Op. 35 for piano) a "masterpiece"; but in the same paragraph calls Mendelssohn "the inventor of religious kitsch in music". Nevertheless, he points out how the dramatic power of "the juncture of religion and music" in Mendelssohn's oratorios is reflected throughout the music of the next fifty years in the operas of Meyerbeer and Giuseppe Verdi and in Wagner's Parsifal.[207]

A large portion of Mendelssohn's 750 works still remained unpublished in the 1960s, but most of them are now available.[208] A scholarly edition of Mendelssohn's complete works and correspondence is in preparation but is expected to take many years to complete, and will be in excess of 150 volumes. This includes a modern and fully researched catalogue of his works, the Mendelssohn-Werkverzeichnis (MWV).[209] Mendelssohn's oeuvre has been explored more deeply.[n 17] Recordings of virtually all of Mendelssohn's published works are now available, and his works are frequently heard in the concert hall and on broadcasts.[210] R. Larry Todd noted in 2007, in the context of the impending bicentenary of Mendelssohn's birth, "the intensifying revival of the composer's music over the past few decades", and that "his image has been largely rehabilitated, as musicians and scholars have returned to this paradoxically familiar but unfamiliar European classical composer, and have begun viewing him from new perspectives."[211]

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ^ /ˈmɛndəlsən, -soʊn/ MEN-dəl-sən, -⁠sohn, German: [ˈjaːkɔp ˈluːtvɪç ˈfeːlɪks ˈmɛndl̩szoːn baʁˈtɔldi]
  2. ^ The overwhelming majority of printed sources in English (e.g. see sources in references, and listings of recordings at Amazon.com and elsewhere), use the form "Mendelssohn" and not "Mendelssohn Bartholdy". The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives "(Jakob Ludwig) Felix Mendelssohn(-Bartholdy)" (note the parentheses) as the entry title, with "Mendelssohn" used in the body text. In German and some other languages the surname "Mendelssohn Bartholdy" (sometimes hyphenated) is generally used.
  3. ^ When founded in 1843 this institution was officially known as the "Leipziger Konservatorium der Musik".[1] English-language Mendelssohn authorities, for example R. Larry Todd and Erich Werner, refer to it as the Leipzig Conservatory.[2][3]
  4. ^ Since 1806 Hamburg had been an independent city, the Free Imperial City of Hamburg; it was annexed to the First French Empire by Napoleon in 1810.
  5. ^ The translation was reprinted by Giovanni Mardersteig at the Officina Bodoni in 1971.[35]
  6. ^ After Bach's death in 1750, the Passion had been performed a few times until about 1800 by Bach's successors as Thomaskantor in Leipzig.[41]
  7. ^ In 1842 Mendelssohn was awarded by the King the honour Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts.[57]
  8. ^ In its own English self-designation, the "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre" (HMT website, accessed 6 November 2017.)
  9. ^ On this occasion, when Bennett was 17 and Mendelssohn 24, Mendelssohn immediately invited Bennett to visit him in Germany. " 'If I come', said Bennett, 'may I come to be your pupil?' 'No, no', was the reply 'you must come to be my friend.' "[66]
  10. ^ One assessment of the type of stroke from which the Mendelssohn family suffered is subarachnoidal haemorrhage.[76]
  11. ^ His friend the cleric Julius Schubring noted that although Mendelssohn "entertained a feeling of affectionate reverence" for his spiritual adviser, the pastor Friedrich Philipp Wilmsen (1770–1831) at the Reformed Parochial Church, "it is true that he did not go very often to hear him perform Divine Service".[87]
  12. ^ The debate became heated when it was discovered that the Mendelssohn scholar Eric Werner had been over-enthusiastic in his interpretation of some documentation in an attempt to establish Felix's Jewish sympathies. See The Musical Quarterly, vols. 82–83 (1998), with articles by J. Sposato, Leon Botstein and others, for expressions of both points of view; and see Conway (2012)[91] for a tertium quid.
  13. ^ Mercer-Taylor wrote that although there was no currently available hard evidence of a physical affair between the two, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".[104] Clive Brown wrote that "it has been rumoured that [...] papers tend to substantiate the notion of an affair between Mendelssohn and Lind, though with what degree of reliability must remain highly questionable".[105]
  14. ^ "Das, was mir eine Musik ausspricht, die ich liebe, sind mir nicht zu unbestimmte Gedanken, um sie in Worte zu fassen, sondern zu bestimmte." From a letter to Marc-André Souchay of 15 October 1842; Mendelssohn's own emphases.p. 298
  15. ^ Echoes of such views survive today in critiques of Mendelssohn's alleged mediocrity. For a modern example see Damian Thompson, , Daily Telegraph 11 November 2010, retrieved 25 September 2017).
  16. ^ It was the only statue in the Palace made of bronze and the only one to survive the 1936 fire that destroyed the Palace. The statue is now situated in Eltham College, London.[196]
  17. ^ See, for example, the conference "Viewing Mendelssohn, Viewing Elijah" held at Arizona State University in 2009 to mark the composer's bicentenary. Accessed 12 September 2021.

References

  1. ^ "Geschichte der Hochschule", (in German), website of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Leipzig, retrieved 26 January 2019.
  2. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 450–451.
  3. ^ Werner 1963, pp. 385–389.
  4. ^ Conway 2012, p. 194.
  5. ^ Conway 2012, pp. 147–148.
  6. ^ a b c d Todd 2003, p. 33.
  7. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 27–29.
  8. ^ Moscheles 1873, p. 98 (vol. I).
  9. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 1.
  10. ^ Conway 2012, pp. 27–28.
  11. ^ Brown 2003, p. 115.
  12. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 92, 165.
  13. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 29.
  14. ^ Conway 2012, p. 151.
  15. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 14–15.
  16. ^ Werner 1963, pp. 36–38.
  17. ^ Todd 2003, p. 139.
  18. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 31.
  19. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 35–36.
  20. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 37–38.
  21. ^ Todd 2003, p. 44.
  22. ^ Werner 1963, pp. 8–9.
  23. ^ Werner 1963, p. 18.
  24. ^ Todd 2003, p. 36.
  25. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 36.
  26. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 35–36.
  27. ^ Conway 2012, p. 242.
  28. ^ Brown 2003, p. 80.
  29. ^ . Kennedy-center.org. 17 February 2011. Archived from the original on 16 June 2013. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
  30. ^ Temperley 2008, §3.
  31. ^ Moscheles 1873, p. 65.
  32. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 167–168.
  33. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 70–71.
  34. ^ Todd 2003, p. 154.
  35. ^ Barr 1978, p. 84.
  36. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 171–172.
  37. ^ Todd 2003, p. 89.
  38. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 41–42, 93.
  39. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 188–190, 269–270.
  40. ^ a b Todd 2001, §2.
  41. ^ Spitta 1972, p. 568 (vol. 2).
  42. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 73–75.
  43. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 193–198.
  44. ^ Devrient 1869, p. 57.
  45. ^ Todd 2001, §3.
  46. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 112–114.
  47. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 285–286.
  48. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 118.
  49. ^ Todd 2001, §4.
  50. ^ Todd 2003, p. 303.
  51. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 444–446.
  52. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 143.
  53. ^ Daverio & Sams 2001, §7.
  54. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 146–147.
  55. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 147.
  56. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 403–408.
  57. ^ Orden Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste (1975). Die Mitglieder des Ordens. 1 1842–1881 (PDF). Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag. p. 66. ISBN 978-3-7861-6189-9.
  58. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 163–164, 168–170, 182–185.
  59. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 179, 198.
  60. ^ a b Conway 2012, pp. 193–194.
  61. ^ Todd 2003, p. 214.
  62. ^ Conway 2009, pp. xvi–xvii.
  63. ^ See "The Journey North" in Mendelssohn in Scotland website, accessed 9 January 2015.
  64. ^ "Mendelssohn, Felix (1809–1847)". English Heritage. Retrieved 16 December 2017.
  65. ^ Bennett 1907, p. 29.
  66. ^ Bennett 1907, p. 30.
  67. ^ Bennett 1907, p. 43.
  68. ^ Hensel 1884, p. 292 (vol. I).
  69. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 172–173.
  70. ^ Todd 2003, p. 439.
  71. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 514–515.
  72. ^ Duggan 1998, pp. 11–35.
  73. ^ Conway 2009, p. xviii.
  74. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 198–203.
  75. ^ a b Sterndale Bennett 1955, p. 376.
  76. ^ S. Schmidler et al., "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847): the mystery of his early death" (in German), in Fortschritte der neurologie-Psychologie, 74 (9), September 2006, pp. 522–527, summarized in English on NCBI website, accessed 1 March 2018.
  77. ^ Werner 1963, p. 497.
  78. ^ Todd 2003, p. 567.
  79. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 206.
  80. ^ Hensel 1884.
  81. ^ Todd 2003, p. xxii.
  82. ^ Devrient 1869, p. 182n.
  83. ^ Devrient 1869, p. 91.
  84. ^ Brown 2003, pp. 47–53.
  85. ^ "Visual Artwork by Felix Mendelssohn", The Mendelssohn Project website. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
  86. ^ Mendelssohn 1986, pp. x–xiii.
  87. ^ Todd 1991, p. 227.
  88. ^ Brown 2003, p. 84.
  89. ^ Devrient 1869, pp. 9–10.
  90. ^ Werner 1963, pp. 42–43.
  91. ^ Conway 2012, pp. 173–184.
  92. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 144.
  93. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 98.
  94. ^ Todd 2003, p. 252.
  95. ^ Hiller 1874, pp. 23–24.
  96. ^ Locke 1986, pp. 107–114.
  97. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 102, 347.
  98. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 485–486.
  99. ^ Schoeps 2009, pp. 211–214.
  100. ^ Schoeps 2009, p. 163.
  101. ^ The Mendelssohn Papers, Bodleian Library website. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
  102. ^ Schoeps 2009, p. 193.
  103. ^ a b Duchen, Jessica. "Conspiracy of Silence: Could the Release of Secret Documents Shatter Felix Mendelssohn's Reputation?", The Independent, 12 January 2009. Retrieved 4 August 2014
  104. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 192.
  105. ^ Brown 2003, p. 33.
  106. ^ Biddlecombe 2013, p. 85.
  107. ^ Sanders 1956, p. 466.
  108. ^ Chorley 1972, p. 194.
  109. ^ Sanders 1956, p. 467.
  110. ^ Youens 2004, p. 190.
  111. ^ Vitercik 2004, p. 71.
  112. ^ Brown 2003, p. 312.
  113. ^ a b Todd 2001, §7
  114. ^ Garratt 2004, p. 55.
  115. ^ Garratt 2004, p. 64.
  116. ^ Brown 2003, pp. 311, 314.
  117. ^ Brown 2003, pp. 311, 317–318.
  118. ^ Vitercik 2004, pp. 71–82.
  119. ^ Taruskin 2010, pp. 180–183.
  120. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 36–37.
  121. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 61–62.
  122. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 109, 139.
  123. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 179–180.
  124. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 102–107.
  125. ^ "Mendelssohn takes top spot as greatest child prodigy of all time. But where's Mozart?". BBC. 13 September 2009. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  126. ^ a b c d Todd 2001, §15 (Works)
  127. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 214, 430.
  128. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 130–131.
  129. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 206–207.
  130. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 90–92.
  131. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 116–117.
  132. ^ Eatock 2009, p. 39.
  133. ^ Todd 2003, p. 430.
  134. ^ a b Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 157.
  135. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 85.
  136. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 69–70.
  137. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 130.
  138. ^ Brown 2003, p. 359.
  139. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 154.
  140. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 180–181.
  141. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 479–481.
  142. ^ Steinberg 1998, p. 265.
  143. ^ Todd 2003, p. 266.
  144. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 202.
  145. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 377–378.
  146. ^ Stanley 2004, p. 149.
  147. ^ Brown 2003, p. 360.
  148. ^ Todd 2003, p. xxvii.
  149. ^ Rosen 1995, p. 589.
  150. ^ Conway 2012, pp. 196, 228.
  151. ^ Werner 1963, p. 424.
  152. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 60–61.
  153. ^ Hensel 1884, p. 159 (vol. II).
  154. ^ Conway 2012, p. 118.
  155. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 560–561.
  156. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 555–556.
  157. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 269–270.
  158. ^ Psalm 42 on Carus Verlag website. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
  159. ^ Todd 2003, p. 468.
  160. ^ Youens 2004, p. 189.
  161. ^ Youens 2004, p. 198.
  162. ^ Youens 2004, p. 192.
  163. ^ Youens 2004, p. 205.
  164. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 175–176.
  165. ^ Hensel 1884, II, pp. 168–171.
  166. ^ Todd 2003, p. 175.
  167. ^ Brown 2003, p. 202.
  168. ^ Brown 2003, pp. 206, 211–216, 222.
  169. ^ Stanley 2004, p. 148.
  170. ^ Todd 1991, p. 279.
  171. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 282–283.
  172. ^ Brown 2003, p. 217.
  173. ^ Todd 2003, p. 206.
  174. ^ Brown 2003, pp. 241–243, 245–247.
  175. ^ Todd 2003, p. 448.
  176. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, pp. 143–145.
  177. ^ Wagner 1992, p. 272.
  178. ^ Brown 2003, pp. 40–46.
  179. ^ Brown 2003, p. 261.
  180. ^ Todd 2003, p. 325.
  181. ^ Brown 2003, p. 280.
  182. ^ a b "Mendelssohn kehrt zurück Rekonstruiertes Denkmal am Dittrichring" (in German). City of Leipzig. Retrieved 20 December 2017.
  183. ^ Todd 1991, p. 360.
  184. ^ Todd 2003, pp. 448–449.
  185. ^ Conway 2012, p. 263.
  186. ^ Wagner 1995, pp. 93–95.
  187. ^ Nietzsche 2002, p. 138.
  188. ^ Todd 2001, §14.
  189. ^ "Music and the Holocaust: Carl Orff". World ORT. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
  190. ^ Hansen & Vogt (2009), cited on web page of Martin Luther Memorial Church, Eisenach 2 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  191. ^ "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy – The Jewish Question". Classic FM. Retrieved 20 December 2017.
  192. ^ "Mendelssohn's statue returns to Düsseldorf". Classical-music.com (BBC Music Magazine). Retrieved 20 December 2017.
  193. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 200.
  194. ^ Sheppard, Elizabeth (1891). Charles Auchester. Chicago: A.C. McClurg and Co. OCLC 2327181.
  195. ^ Conway 2012, p. 257.
  196. ^ Eatock 2009, p. 120.
  197. ^ Emmett 1996, p. 755.
  198. ^ Firman 2004.
  199. ^ Todd 2003, p. 6.
  200. ^ Mellers 1957, p. 31.
  201. ^ Andrew Porter, Liner notes to Walter Gieseking's recording of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words, Angel 35428.
  202. ^ See Rubinstein's concert programmes in Barenboim (1962), passim
  203. ^ Smith 2000, pp. 97, 99.
  204. ^ e.g. Werner (1963), Mercer-Taylor (2000), Brown (2003), Todd (2003)
  205. ^ Mercer-Taylor 2000, p. 205.
  206. ^ quoted in Todd 2001, §14
  207. ^ Rosen 1995, pp. 569–598.
  208. ^ Mendelssohn Foundation website, "List of Mendelssohn's Works" (in German). Retrieved 17 December 2017.
  209. ^ Official site of the Leipzig Edition of Mendelssohn (in German). Retrieved 16 December 2017.
  210. ^ For example, five of his works feature in the British radio station Classic FM's 2017 top 300. Retrieved 16 December 2017.
  211. ^ Todd 2007, p. xi.

Sources

  • Barenboim, Lev Aronovich (1962). Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein (in Russian) (2 vols. ed.). Leningrad: State Musical Publishing House. OCLC 16655013.
  • Barr, John (1978). The Officina Bodoni, Montagnola, Verona: Books Printed By Giovanni Mardersteig on the Hand Press, 1923–1977. London: The British Library. ISBN 978-0-7141-0398-3.
  • Bennett, J.R. Sterndale (1907). The Life of Sterndale Bennett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 59807054.
  • Biddlecombe, George (2013). "Secret Letters and a Missing Memorandum: New Light on the Personal Relationship between Felix Mendelssohn and Jenny Lind". Journal of the Royal Musical Association. 138 (1): 47–83. doi:10.1080/02690403.2013.771961. S2CID 170879707.
  • Brown, Clive (2003). A Portrait of Mendelssohn. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09539-5.
  • Chorley, Henry (1972). Thirty Years' Musical Recollections. New York: Vienna House. ISBN 978-0-8443-0026-9. Edited by Ernest Newman.
  • Conway, David (2009). ""Short, Dark and Jewish-Looking": Felix Mendelssohn in Britain". In Massil, Stephen (ed.). The Jewish Year Book 2009. Valentine and Mitchell. ISBN 978-0-85303-890-0. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  • Conway, David (2012). Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01538-8.
  • Daverio, John; Sams, Eric (2001). "Schumann, Robert". In Deane Root (ed.). Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.40704. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
  • Devrient, Eduard (1869). My Recollections of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. Translated by N. MacFarren. London: Richard Bentley. OCLC 251991611.
  • Duggan, Audrey (1998). A Sense of Occasion: Mendelssohn in Birmingham 1846. Studley: Brewin Books. ISBN 978-1-85858-127-9.
  • Eatock, Colin (2009). Mendelssohn and Victorian England. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-6652-3.
  • Emmett, William (1996). The national and religious song reader. New York: Haworth Press. ISBN 978-0-7890-0099-6.
  • Firman, Rosemary (2004). "Bennett, Sir William Sterndale (1816–1875)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2131. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • Garratt, James (2004). "Mendelssohn and the Rise of Musical Historicism". In Mercer-Taylor, Peter (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 55–70. ISBN 978-0-521-53342-3.
  • Hansen, Jörg; Vogt, Gerald (2009). "Blut und Geist": Bach, Mendelssohn und ihre Musik im Dritten Reich. Eisenach: Bachhaus Eisenach. ISBN 978-3-932257-06-3.
  • Hensel, Sebastian (1884). The Mendelssohn Family (4th revised ed.). London: Sampson Low and Co. OCLC 655604542. 2 volumes. Edited by Felix's nephew, an important collection of letters and documents about the family.
  • Hiller, Ferdinand (1874). Mendelssohn: Letters and Recollections. London: MacMillan and Co. OCLC 1019332582. Translated by M.E. von Glehn.
  • Locke, Ralph P. (1986). Music, Musicians and the Saint-Simonians. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-48902-5.
  • Mellers, Wilfrid (1957). Romanticism and the Twentieth Century. London. OCLC 869299807.
  • Mendelssohn, Felix (1986). Felix Mendelssohn, A Life in Letters. New York. ISBN 978-0-88064-060-2. Edited by R. Elvers, translated by C. Tomlinson.
  • Mercer-Taylor, Peter (2000). The Life of Mendelssohn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-63972-9.
  • Moscheles, Charlotte (1873). Life of Moscheles, with selections from his Diaries and Correspondence. London: Hirst and Blackett. OCLC 185148728.
  • Nietzsche, Friedrich (2002). Beyond Good and Evil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-77078-1. Translated by Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Judith Norman.
  • Rosen, Charles (1995). The Romantic Generation. Harvard. ISBN 978-0-674-77933-4.
  • Sanders, L.G.D. (1956). "Jenny Lind, Sullivan and the Mendelssohn Scholarship". Musical Times. 97 (1363): 466–467. doi:10.2307/936774. JSTOR 936774.
  • Schoeps, Julius S. (2009). Das Erbe der Mendelssohns (in German). Frankfurt: S. Fischer Verlag. ISBN 978-3-10-073606-2.
  • Smith, Ronald (2000). Alkan: The man, the music. London: Kahn & Averill. ISBN 978-1-871082-73-9.
  • Spitta, Philipp (1972). Johann Sebastian Bach (3 vols.). Translated by Bell, Clara; Fuller-Maitland, J.A. New York: Dover Books. ISBN 978-0-486-27412-6.
  • Stanley, Glenn (2004). "The music for keyboard". In Mercer-Taylor, Peter (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 189–205. ISBN 978-0-521-53342-3.
  • Steinberg, Michael (1998). The Concerto: A Listener's Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-802634-1.
  • Sterndale Bennett, R. (1955). "The Death of Mendelssohn". Music and Letters. 36 (4).
  • Taruskin, Richard (2010). The Oxford History of Western Music. 3: Music in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-538483-3.
  • Temperley, Nicholas (2008). "Overture". In Deane Root (ed.). Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.20616.
  • Todd, R. Larry, ed. (1991). Mendelssohn and his World. Princeton. ISBN 978-0-691-02715-9.
  • Todd, R. Larry (2001). "Mendelssohn, Felix". In Deane Root (ed.). Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.51795.
  • Todd, R. Larry (2003). Mendelssohn – A Life in Music. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-511043-2.
  • Todd, R. Larry (2007). Mendelssohn Essays. New York and London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 978-0-415-97814-9.
  • Vitercik, Greg (2004). "Mendelssohn as Progressive". In Mercer-Taylor, Peter (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 71–88. ISBN 978-0-521-53342-3.
  • Wagner, Richard (1992). My Life. New York: Da Capo. ISBN 978-0-306-80481-6. Translated by Andrew Grey.
  • Wagner, Richard (1995). Judaism in Music and Other Essays. Lincoln, NE; London: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-9766-1. Translated by W. Ashton Ellis.
  • Werner, Eric (1963). Mendelssohn, A New Image of the Composer and his Age. New York; London: Free Press of Glencoe. OCLC 479241019.
  • Youens, Susan (2004). "Mendelssohn's songs". In Mercer-Taylor, Peter (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 189–205. ISBN 978-0-521-53342-3.

Further reading

There are numerous published editions and selections of Mendelssohn's letters.

The main collections of Mendelssohn's original musical autographs and letters are to be found in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, the New York Public Library, and the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. The autographs of his letters to Moscheles are in Special Collections at Brotherton Library, University of Leeds.

  • Mendelssohn, Felix (1888). F. Moscheles (ed.). Letters of Felix Mendelssohn to Ignaz and Charlotte Moscheles. London and Boston. OCLC 61618461.
  • Mercer-Taylor, Peter, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-53342-3.
  • Selden-Goth, Gisela, ed. (1945) Felix Mendelssohn: Letters. New York: Pantheon Books, Inc.

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Felix Mendelssohn.
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Felix Mendelssohn.
 
Wikisource has original works by or about:
Felix Mendelssohn
 
Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Felix Mendelssohn.

Texts

  • Works by Felix Mendelssohn at Project Gutenberg, Works by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy at Project Gutenberg (Both these relate to Felix Mendelssohn, but the Gutenberg system lists him under both names).
  • Works by or about Felix Mendelssohn at Internet Archive
  • Felix Mendelssohn at the Musopen project
  • Leipzig Edition of the Works by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy edited by the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig (in German) Information about the ongoing complete edition.
  • Texts and translations of vocal music by Mendelssohn at The LiederNet Archive
  • Complete Edition: Leipzig Edition of the Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (in German) Information about the ongoing complete edition.
  • The Mendelssohn Project A project with the objective of "recording of the complete published and unpublished works of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn"
  • A Renaissance Man Among the Romantics: Felix Mendelssohn at 200 A virtual exhibit of Mendelssohn manuscripts and early editions held at the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University
  • "Discovering Mendelssohn". BBC Radio 3.
  • Mendelssohn in Scotland
  • Full text of Charles Auchester by Elizabeth Sheppard (1891 edition) (her novel with a hero based on Mendelssohn)
  • Archival material at Leeds University Library

Recordings

See articles on individual works for links to recordings

Music scores

March 13, 2023
felix, mendelssohn, mendelssohn, redirects, here, other, uses, mendelssohn, surname, mendelssohn, disambiguation, jakob, ludwig, bartholdy, february, 1809, november, 1847, born, widely, known, german, composer, pianist, organist, conductor, early, romantic, pe. Mendelssohn redirects here For other uses see Mendelssohn surname and Mendelssohn disambiguation Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy n 1 3 February 1809 4 November 1847 born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn n 2 was a German composer pianist organist and conductor of the early Romantic period Mendelssohn s compositions include symphonies concertos piano music organ music and chamber music His best known works include the overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night s Dream which includes his Wedding March the Italian Symphony the Scottish Symphony the oratorio St Paul the oratorio Elijah the overture The Hebrides the mature Violin Concerto and the String Octet The melody for the Christmas carol Hark The Herald Angels Sing is also his Mendelssohn s Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions Portrait of Mendelssohn by the German painter Eduard Magnus 1846 Mendelssohn s grandfather was the renowned Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn but Felix was initially raised without religion He was baptised at the age of seven becoming a Reformed Christian He was recognised early as a musical prodigy but his parents were cautious and did not seek to capitalise on his talent His sister Fanny Mendelssohn received a similar musical education and was a talented composer and pianist in her own right some of her early songs were published under her brother s name and her Easter Sonata was for a time mistakenly attributed to him after being lost and rediscovered in the 1970s Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany and revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach notably with his performance of the St Matthew Passion in 1829 He became well received in his travels throughout Europe as a composer conductor and soloist his ten visits to Britain during which many of his major works were premiered form an important part of his adult career His essentially conservative musical tastes set him apart from more adventurous musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt Richard Wagner Charles Valentin Alkan and Hector Berlioz The Leipzig Conservatory n 3 which he founded became a bastion of this anti radical outlook After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries his creative originality has been re evaluated He is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era Contents 1 Life 1 1 Childhood 1 2 Surname 1 3 Career 1 3 1 Musical education 1 3 2 Early maturity 1 3 3 Meeting Goethe and conducting Bach 1 3 4 Dusseldorf 1 3 5 Leipzig and Berlin 1 3 6 Mendelssohn in Britain 1 3 7 Death 1 4 Personal life 1 4 1 Personality 1 4 2 Religion 1 4 3 Mendelssohn and his contemporaries 1 4 4 Marriage and children 1 4 5 Jenny Lind 2 Music 2 1 Composer 2 1 1 Style 2 1 2 Early works 2 1 3 Symphonies 2 1 4 Other orchestral music 2 1 5 Concertos 2 1 6 Chamber music 2 1 7 Piano music 2 1 8 Organ music 2 1 9 Opera 2 1 10 Choral works 2 1 11 Songs 2 2 Performer 2 3 Conductor 2 4 Editor 2 5 Teacher 3 Reputation and legacy 3 1 The first century 3 2 Modern opinions 4 Notes and references 5 Sources 6 Further reading 7 External links 7 1 Texts 7 2 Recordings 7 3 Music scoresLife EditChildhood Edit Felix Mendelssohn aged 12 1821 by Carl Joseph Begas Felix Mendelssohn was born on 3 February 1809 in Hamburg at the time an independent city state n 4 in the same house where a year later the dedicatee and first performer of his Violin Concerto Ferdinand David would be born 4 Mendelssohn s father the banker Abraham Mendelssohn was the son of the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn whose family was prominent in the German Jewish community 5 Until his baptism at age seven Mendelssohn was brought up largely without religion 6 His mother Lea Salomon was a member of the Itzig family and a sister of Jakob Salomon Bartholdy 7 Mendelssohn was the second of four children his older sister Fanny also displayed exceptional and precocious musical talent 8 The family moved to Berlin in 1811 leaving Hamburg in disguise in fear of French reprisal for the Mendelssohn bank s role in breaking Napoleon s Continental System blockade 9 Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn sought to give their children Fanny Felix Paul and Rebecka the best education possible Fanny became a pianist well known in Berlin musical circles as a composer originally Abraham had thought that she rather than Felix would be the more musical But it was not considered proper by either Abraham or Felix for a woman to pursue a career in music so she remained an active but non professional musician 10 Abraham was initially disinclined to allow Felix to follow a musical career until it became clear that he was seriously dedicated 11 Mendelssohn grew up in an intellectual environment Frequent visitors to the salon organised by his parents at their home in Berlin included artists musicians and scientists among them Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet whom Mendelssohn s sister Rebecka would later marry 12 The musician Sarah Rothenburg has written of the household that Europe came to their living room 13 Surname Edit Abraham Mendelssohn renounced the Jewish religion prior to Felix s birth he and his wife decided not to have Felix circumcised in contravention of the Jewish tradition 14 Felix and his siblings were at first brought up without religious education on 21 March 1816 they were baptized in a private ceremony in the family s Berlin apartment by the Reformed Protestant minister of the Jerusalem Church 6 at which time Felix was given the additional names Jakob Ludwig Abraham and his wife Lea were baptised in 1822 and formally adopted the surname Mendelssohn Bartholdy which they had used since 1812 for themselves and for their children 6 The name Bartholdy was added at the suggestion of Lea s brother Jakob Salomon Bartholdy who had inherited a property of this name in Luisenstadt and adopted it as his own surname 15 In an 1829 letter to Felix Abraham explained that adopting the Bartholdy name was meant to demonstrate a decisive break with the traditions of his father Moses There can no more be a Christian Mendelssohn than there can be a Jewish Confucius Letter to Felix of 8 July 1829 16 On embarking on his musical career Felix did not entirely drop the name Mendelssohn as Abraham had requested but in deference to his father signed his letters and had his visiting cards printed using the form Mendelssohn Bartholdy 17 In 1829 his sister Fanny wrote to him of Bartholdy this name that we all dislike 18 Career Edit Musical education Edit Mendelssohn began taking piano lessons from his mother when he was six and at seven was tutored by Marie Bigot in Paris 19 Later in Berlin all four Mendelssohn children studied piano with Ludwig Berger who was himself a former student of Muzio Clementi 20 From at least May 1819 Mendelssohn initially with his sister Fanny studied counterpoint and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin 21 This was an important influence on his future career Zelter had almost certainly been recommended as a teacher by his aunt Sarah Levy who had been a pupil of W F Bach and a patron of C P E Bach Sarah Levy displayed some talent as a keyboard player and often played with Zelter s orchestra at the Berliner Singakademie she and the Mendelssohn family were among its leading patrons Sarah had formed an important collection of Bach family manuscripts which she bequeathed to the Singakademie Zelter whose tastes in music were conservative was also an admirer of the Bach tradition 22 This undoubtedly played a significant part in forming Felix Mendelssohn s musical tastes as his works reflect this study of Baroque and early classical music His fugues and chorales especially reflect a tonal clarity and use of counterpoint reminiscent of Johann Sebastian Bach whose music influenced him deeply 23 Early maturity Edit First page of the manuscript of Mendelssohn s Octet 1825 now in the US Library of Congress Mendelssohn probably made his first public concert appearance at the age of nine when he participated in a chamber music concert accompanying a horn duo 24 He was a prolific composer from an early age As an adolescent his works were often performed at home with a private orchestra for the associates of his wealthy parents amongst the intellectual elite of Berlin 25 Between the ages of 12 and 14 Mendelssohn wrote 13 string symphonies for such concerts and a number of chamber works 26 His first work a piano quartet was published when he was 13 It was probably Abraham Mendelssohn who procured the publication of this quartet by the house of Schlesinger 27 In 1824 the 15 year old wrote his first symphony for full orchestra in C minor Op 11 28 At age 16 Mendelssohn wrote his String Octet in E flat major a work which has been regarded as mark ing the beginning of his maturity as a composer 29 This Octet and his Overture to Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream which he wrote a year later in 1826 are the best known of his early works Later in 1843 he also wrote incidental music for the play including the famous Wedding March The Overture is perhaps the earliest example of a concert overture that is a piece not written deliberately to accompany a staged performance but to evoke a literary theme in performance on a concert platform this was a genre which became a popular form in musical Romanticism 30 In 1824 Mendelssohn studied under the composer and piano virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles who confessed in his diaries 31 that he had little to teach him Moscheles and Mendelssohn became close colleagues and lifelong friends The year 1827 saw the premiere and sole performance in his lifetime of Mendelssohn s opera Die Hochzeit des Camacho The failure of this production left him disinclined to venture into the genre again 32 Besides music Mendelssohn s education included art literature languages and philosophy He had a particular interest in classical literature 33 and translated Terence s Andria for his tutor Heyse in 1825 Heyse was impressed and had it published in 1826 as a work of his pupil F i e Felix asterisks as provided in original text 34 n 5 This translation also qualified Mendelssohn to study at the University of Berlin where from 1826 to 1829 he attended lectures on aesthetics by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel on history by Eduard Gans and on geography by Carl Ritter 36 Meeting Goethe and conducting Bach Edit In 1821 Zelter introduced Mendelssohn to his friend and correspondent the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe then in his seventies who was greatly impressed by the child leading to perhaps the earliest confirmed comparison with Mozart in the following conversation between Goethe and Zelter Musical prodigies are probably no longer so rare but what this little man can do in extemporizing and playing at sight borders the miraculous and I could not have believed it possible at so early an age And yet you heard Mozart in his seventh year at Frankfurt said Zelter Yes answered Goethe but what your pupil already accomplishes bears the same relation to the Mozart of that time that the cultivated talk of a grown up person bears to the prattle of a child 37 Mendelssohn was invited to meet Goethe on several later occasions 38 and set a number of Goethe s poems to music His other compositions inspired by Goethe include the overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Op 27 1828 and the cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht The First Walpurgis Night Op 60 1832 39 In 1829 with the backing of Zelter and the assistance of the actor Eduard Devrient Mendelssohn arranged and conducted a performance in Berlin of Bach s St Matthew Passion Four years previously his grandmother Bella Salomon had given him a copy of the manuscript of this by then all but forgotten masterpiece 40 The orchestra and choir for the performance were provided by the Berlin Singakademie The success of this performance one of the very few since Bach s death and the first ever outside of Leipzig n 6 was the central event in the revival of Bach s music in Germany and eventually throughout Europe 42 It earned Mendelssohn widespread acclaim at the age of 20 It also led to one of the few explicit references which Mendelssohn made to his origins To think that it took an actor and a Jew s son to revive the greatest Christian music for the world 43 44 Over the next few years Mendelssohn travelled widely His first visit to England was in 1829 other places visited during the 1830s included Vienna Florence Milan Rome and Naples in all of which he met with local and visiting musicians and artists These years proved to be the germination for some of his most famous works including the Hebrides Overture and the Scottish and Italian symphonies 45 Dusseldorf Edit On Zelter s death in 1832 Mendelssohn had hopes of succeeding him as conductor of the Singakademie but at a vote in January 1833 he was defeated for the post by Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen This may have been because of Mendelssohn s youth and fear of possible innovations it was also suspected by some to be attributable to his Jewish ancestry 46 Following this rebuff Mendelssohn divided most of his professional time over the next few years between Britain and Dusseldorf where he was appointed musical director his first paid post as a musician in 1833 47 In the spring of that year Mendelssohn directed the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in Dusseldorf beginning with a performance of George Frideric Handel s oratorio Israel in Egypt prepared from the original score which he had found in London This precipitated a Handel revival in Germany similar to the reawakened interest in J S Bach following his performance of the St Matthew Passion 48 Mendelssohn worked with the dramatist Karl Immermann to improve local theatre standards and made his first appearance as an opera conductor in Immermann s production of Mozart s Don Giovanni at the end of 1833 where he took umbrage at the audience s protests about the cost of tickets His frustration at his everyday duties in Dusseldorf and the city s provincialism led him to resign his position at the end of 1834 He had offers from both Munich and Leipzig for important musical posts namely direction of the Munich Opera the editorship of the prestigious Leipzig music journal the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and direction of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra he accepted the latter in 1835 49 50 Leipzig and Berlin Edit The composer s study in Mendelssohn House a museum in Leipzig In Leipzig Mendelssohn concentrated on developing the town s musical life by working with the orchestra the opera house the Thomanerchor of which Bach had been a director and the city s other choral and musical institutions Mendelssohn s concerts included in addition to many of his own works three series of historical concerts featuring music of the eighteenth century and a number of works by his contemporaries 51 He was deluged by offers of music from rising and would be composers among these was Richard Wagner who submitted his early Symphony the score of which to Wagner s disgust Mendelssohn lost or mislaid 52 Mendelssohn also revived interest in the music of Franz Schubert Robert Schumann discovered the manuscript of Schubert s Ninth Symphony and sent it to Mendelssohn who promptly premiered it in Leipzig on 21 March 1839 more than a decade after Schubert s death 53 A landmark event during Mendelssohn s Leipzig years was the premiere of his oratorio Paulus the English version of this is known as St Paul given at the Lower Rhenish Festival in Dusseldorf in 1836 shortly after the death of the composer s father which affected him greatly Felix wrote that he would never cease to endeavour to gain his approval although I can no longer enjoy it 54 St Paul seemed to many of Mendelssohn s contemporaries to be his finest work and sealed his European reputation 55 When Friedrich Wilhelm IV came to the Prussian throne in 1840 with ambitions to develop Berlin as a cultural centre including the establishment of a music school and reform of music for the church the obvious choice to head these reforms was Mendelssohn He was reluctant to undertake the task especially in the light of his existing strong position in Leipzig 56 Mendelssohn nonetheless spent some time in Berlin writing some church music such as Die Deutsche Liturgie and at the King s request music for productions of Sophocles s Antigone 1841 an overture and seven pieces and Oedipus at Colonus 1845 A Midsummer Night s Dream 1843 and Racine s Athalie 1845 n 7 But the funds for the school never materialised and many of the court s promises to Mendelssohn regarding finances title and concert programming were broken He was therefore not displeased to have the excuse to return to Leipzig 58 In 1843 Mendelssohn founded a major music school the Leipzig Conservatory now the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy n 8 where he persuaded Ignaz Moscheles and Robert Schumann to join him Other prominent musicians including the string players Ferdinand David and Joseph Joachim and the music theorist Moritz Hauptmann also became staff members 59 After Mendelssohn s death in 1847 his musically conservative tradition was carried on when Moscheles succeeded him as head of the Conservatory 60 Mendelssohn in Britain Edit Mendelssohn first visited Britain in 1829 where Moscheles who had already settled in London introduced him to influential musical circles In the summer he visited Edinburgh where he met among others the composer John Thomson whom he later recommended for the post of Professor of Music at Edinburgh University 61 He made ten visits to Britain lasting about 20 months he won a strong following which enabled him to make a good impression on British musical life 62 He composed and performed and also edited for British publishers the first critical editions of oratorios of Handel and of the organ music of J S Bach Scotland inspired two of his most famous works the overture The Hebrides also known as Fingal s Cave and the Scottish Symphony Symphony No 3 63 An English Heritage blue plaque commemorating Mendelssohn s residence in London was placed at 4 Hobart Place in Belgravia London in 2013 64 His protege the British composer and pianist William Sterndale Bennett worked closely with Mendelssohn during this period both in London and Leipzig He first heard Bennett perform in London in 1833 aged 17 65 n 9 Bennett appeared with Mendelssohn in concerts in Leipzig throughout the 1836 1837 season 67 On Mendelssohn s eighth British visit in the summer of 1844 he conducted five of the Philharmonic concerts in London and wrote N ever before was anything like this season we never went to bed before half past one every hour of every day was filled with engagements three weeks beforehand and I got through more music in two months than in all the rest of the year Letter to Rebecka Mendelssohn Bartholdy Soden 22 July 1844 68 On subsequent visits Mendelssohn met Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert himself a composer who both greatly admired his music 69 70 Mendelssohn s oratorio Elijah was commissioned by the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival and premiered on 26 August 1846 at the Town Hall Birmingham It was composed to a German text translated into English by William Bartholomew who authored and translated many of Mendelssohn s works during his time in England 71 72 Mendelssohn s gravestone at the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof On his last visit to Britain in 1847 Mendelssohn was the soloist in Beethoven s Piano Concerto No 4 and conducted his own Scottish Symphony with the Philharmonic Orchestra before the Queen and Prince Albert 73 Death Edit Mendelssohn suffered from poor health in the final years of his life probably aggravated by nervous problems and overwork A final tour of England left him exhausted and ill and the death of his sister Fanny on 14 May 1847 caused him further distress Less than six months later on 4 November aged 38 Mendelssohn died in Leipzig after a series of strokes 74 His grandfather Moses Fanny and both his parents had all died from similar apoplexies 75 n 10 Although he had been generally meticulous in the management of his affairs he died intestate 77 Mendelssohn s funeral was held at the Paulinerkirche Leipzig and he was buried at the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof I in Berlin Kreuzberg The pallbearers included Moscheles Schumann and Niels Gade 78 Mendelssohn had once described death in a letter to a stranger as a place where it is to be hoped there is still music but no more sorrow or partings 79 Personal life Edit Personality Edit View of Lucerne watercolour by Mendelssohn 1847 While Mendelssohn was often presented as equable happy and placid in temperament particularly in the detailed family memoirs published by his nephew Sebastian Hensel after the composer s death 80 this was misleading The music historian R Larry Todd notes the remarkable process of idealization of Mendelssohn s character that crystallized in the memoirs of the composer s circle including Hensel s 81 The nickname discontented Polish count was given to Mendelssohn on account of his aloofness and he referred to the epithet in his letters 82 He was frequently given to fits of temper which occasionally led to collapse Devrient mentions that on one occasion in the 1830s when his wishes had been crossed his excitement was increased so fearfully that when the family was assembled he began to talk incoherently in English The stern voice of his father at last checked the wild torrent of words they took him to bed and a profound sleep of twelve hours restored him to his normal state 83 Such fits may be related to his early death 75 Mendelssohn was an enthusiastic visual artist who worked in pencil and watercolour a skill which he enjoyed throughout his life 84 85 His correspondences indicate that he could write with considerable wit in German and English these letters are sometimes accompanied by humorous sketches and cartoons 86 Religion Edit On 21 March 1816 at the age of seven years Mendelssohn was baptised with his brother and sisters in a home ceremony by Johann Jakob Stegemann minister of the Evangelical congregation of Berlin s Jerusalem Church and New Church 6 Although Mendelssohn was a conforming Christian as a member of the Reformed Church n 11 he was both conscious and proud of his Jewish ancestry and notably of his connection with his grandfather Moses Mendelssohn He was the prime mover in proposing to the publisher Heinrich Brockhaus a complete edition of Moses s works which continued with the support of his uncle Joseph Mendelssohn 88 Felix was notably reluctant either in his letters or conversation to comment on his innermost beliefs his friend Devrient wrote that his deep convictions were never uttered in intercourse with the world only in rare and intimate moments did they ever appear and then only in the slightest and most humorous allusions 89 Thus for example in a letter to his sister Rebecka Mendelssohn rebukes her complaint about an unpleasant relative What do you mean by saying you are not hostile to Jews I hope this was a joke It is really sweet of you that you do not despise your family isn t it 90 Some modern scholars have devoted considerable energy to demonstrate either that Mendelssohn was deeply sympathetic to his ancestors Jewish beliefs or that he was hostile to this and sincere in his Christian beliefs n 12 Mendelssohn and his contemporaries Edit Giacomo Meyerbeer by Josef Kriehuber 1847Throughout his life Mendelssohn was wary of the more radical musical developments undertaken by some of his contemporaries He was generally on friendly if sometimes somewhat cool terms with Hector Berlioz Franz Liszt and Giacomo Meyerbeer but in his letters expresses his frank disapproval of their works for example writing of Liszt that his compositions were inferior to his playing and only calculated for virtuosos 92 of Berlioz s overture Les francs juges T he orchestration is such a frightful muddle that one ought to wash one s hands after handling one of his scores 93 and of Meyerbeer s opera Robert le diable I consider it ignoble calling its villain Bertram a poor devil 94 When his friend the composer Ferdinand Hiller suggested in conversation to Mendelssohn that he looked rather like Meyerbeer they were actually distant cousins both descendants of Rabbi Moses Isserles Mendelssohn was so upset that he immediately went to get a haircut to differentiate himself 95 In particular Mendelssohn seems to have regarded Paris and its music with the greatest of suspicion and an almost puritanical distaste Attempts made during his visit there to interest him in Saint Simonianism ended in embarrassing scenes 96 It is significant that the only musician with whom Mendelssohn remained a close personal friend Ignaz Moscheles was of an older generation and equally conservative in outlook Moscheles preserved this conservative attitude at the Leipzig Conservatory until his own death in 1870 60 Marriage and children Edit Mendelssohn s wife Cecile 1846 by Eduard Magnus Daguerreotype of Jenny Lind 1850Mendelssohn married Cecile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud 10 October 1817 25 September 1853 the daughter of a French Reformed Church clergyman on 28 March 1837 97 The couple had five children Carl Marie Paul Lili and Felix August The second youngest child Felix August contracted measles in 1844 and was left with impaired health he died in 1851 98 The eldest Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdy 7 February 1838 23 February 1897 became a historian and Professor of History at Heidelberg and Freiburg universities he died in a psychiatric institution in Freiburg aged 59 99 Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy 1841 1880 was a noted chemist and pioneered the manufacture of aniline dye Marie married Victor Benecke and lived in London Lili married Adolf Wach later Professor of Law at Leipzig University 100 The family papers inherited by Marie s and Lili s children form the basis of the extensive collection of Mendelssohn manuscripts including the so called Green Books of his correspondence now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University 101 Cecile Mendelssohn Bartholdy died less than six years after her husband on 25 September 1853 102 Jenny Lind Edit Mendelssohn became close to the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind whom he met in October 1844 Papers confirming their relationship had not been made public 103 n 13 In 2013 George Biddlecombe confirmed in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association that The Committee of the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation possesses material indicating that Mendelssohn wrote passionate love letters to Jenny Lind entreating her to join him in an adulterous relationship and threatening suicide as a means of exerting pressure upon her and that these letters were destroyed on being discovered after her death 106 Mendelssohn met and worked with Lind many times and started an opera Lorelei for her based on the legend of the Lorelei Rhine maidens the opera was unfinished at his death He is said to have tailored the aria Hear Ye Israel in his oratorio Elijah to Lind s voice although she did not sing the part until after his death at a concert in December 1848 107 In 1847 Mendelssohn attended a London performance of Meyerbeer s Robert le diable an opera that musically he despised in order to hear Lind s British debut in the role of Alice The music critic Henry Chorley who was with him wrote I see as I write the smile with which Mendelssohn whose enjoyment of Mdlle Lind s talent was unlimited turned round and looked at me as if a load of anxiety had been taken off his mind His attachment to Mdlle Lind s genius as a singer was unbounded as was his desire for her success 108 Upon Mendelssohn s death Lind wrote He was the only person who brought fulfillment to my spirit and almost as soon as I found him I lost him again In 1849 she established the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation which makes an award to a young resident British composer every two years in Mendelssohn s memory The first winner of the scholarship in 1856 was Arthur Sullivan then aged 14 In 1869 Lind erected a plaque in Mendelssohn s memory at his birthplace in Hamburg 103 109 Music EditSee also List of compositions by Felix Mendelssohn and Category Compositions by Felix Mendelssohn Composer Edit Style Edit Mendelssohn plays to Goethe 1830 by Moritz Oppenheim 1864Something of Mendelssohn s intense attachment to his personal vision of music is conveyed in his comments to a correspondent who suggested converting some of the Songs Without Words into lieder by adding texts What the music I love expresses to me are not thoughts that are too indefinite for me to put into words but on the contrary too definite n 14 110 Schumann wrote of Mendelssohn that he was the Mozart of the nineteenth century the most brilliant musician the one who most clearly sees through the contradictions of the age and for the first time reconciles them 111 This appreciation brings to the fore two features that characterized Mendelssohn s compositions and his compositional process First that his inspiration for musical style was rooted in his technical mastery and his interpretation of the style of previous masters 112 although he certainly recognized and developed the strains of early Romanticism in the music of Beethoven and Weber 113 The historian James Garratt writes that from his early career the view emerged that Mendelssohn s engagement with early music was a defining aspect of his creativity 114 This approach was recognized by Mendelssohn himself who wrote that in his meetings with Goethe he gave the poet historical exhibitions at the keyboard every morning for about an hour I have to play a variety of works by great composers in chronological order and must explain to him how they contributed to the advance of music 115 Secondly it highlights that Mendelssohn was more concerned to reinvigorate the musical legacy which he inherited rather than to replace it with new forms and styles or with the use of more exotic orchestration 116 In these ways he differed significantly from many of his contemporaries in the early Romantic period such as Wagner Berlioz and Franz Liszt 117 Whilst Mendelssohn admired Liszt s virtuosity at the keyboard he found his music jejune Berlioz said of Mendelssohn that he had perhaps studied the music of the dead too closely 113 The musicologist Greg Vitercik considers that while Mendelssohn s music only rarely aspires to provoke the stylistic innovations evident from his earliest works solve some of the contradictions between classical forms and the sentiments of Romanticism The expressiveness of Romantic music presented a problem in adherence to sonata form the final recapitulation section of a movement could seem in the context of Romantic style a bland element without passion or soul Furthermore it could be seen as a pedantic delay before reaching the emotional climax of a movement which in the classical tradition had tended to be at the transition from the development section of the movement to the recapitulation whereas Berlioz and other modernists sought to have the emotional climax at the end of a movement if necessary by adding an extended coda to follow the recapitulation proper Mendelssohn s solution to this problem was less sensational than Berlioz s approach but was rooted in changing the structural balance of the formal components of the movement Thus typically in a Mendelssohnian movement the development recapitulation transition might not be strongly marked and the recapitulation section would be harmonically or melodically varied so as not to be a direct copy of the opening exposition section this allowed a logical movement towards a final climax Vitercik summarizes the effect as to assimilate the dynamic trajectory of external form to the logical unfolding of the story of the theme 118 Richard Taruskin wrote that although Mendelssohn produced works of extraordinary mastery at a very early age he never outgrew his precocious youthful style He remained stylistically conservative feeling no need to attract attention with a display of revolutionary novelty Throughout his short career he remained comfortably faithful to the musical status quo that is the classical forms as they were already thought of by his time His version of romanticism already evident in his earliest works consisted in musical pictorialism of a fairly conventional objective nature though exquisitely wrought 119 Early works Edit The young Mendelssohn was greatly influenced in his childhood by the music of both J S Bach and C P E Bach and of Beethoven Joseph Haydn and Mozart traces of these composers can be seen in the 13 early string symphonies These were written from 1821 to 1823 when he was between the ages of 12 and 14 principally for performance in the Mendelssohn household and not published or publicly performed until long after his death 120 121 His first published works were his three piano quartets 1822 1825 Op 1 in C minor Op 2 in F minor and Op 3 in B minor 122 but his capacities are especially revealed in a group of works of his early maturity the String Octet 1825 the Overture A Midsummer Night s Dream 1826 which in its finished form also owes much to the influence of Adolf Bernhard Marx at the time a close friend of Mendelssohn and the two early string quartets Op 12 1829 and Op 13 1827 which both show a remarkable grasp of the techniques and ideas of Beethoven s last quartets that Mendelssohn had been closely studying 123 These four works show an intuitive command of form harmony counterpoint colour and compositional technique which in the opinion of R Larry Todd justifies claims frequently made that Mendelssohn s precocity exceeded even that of Mozart in its intellectual grasp 124 A 2009 survey by the BBC of 16 music critics opined that Mendelssohn was the greatest composing prodigy in the history of Western classical music 125 Symphonies Edit Portrait of Mendelssohn by Wilhelm Hensel 1847 Mendelssohn s mature symphonies are numbered approximately in the order of publication rather than the order in which they were composed The order of composition is 1 5 4 2 3 126 The placement of No 3 in this sequence is problematic because he worked on it for over a decade starting the sketches soon after he began work on No 5 but completing it after both Nos 5 and 4 127 The Symphony No 1 in C minor for full orchestra was written in 1824 when Mendelssohn was aged 15 This work is experimental showing the influences of Beethoven and Carl Maria von Weber 128 Mendelssohn conducted the symphony on his first visit to London in 1829 with the orchestra of the Philharmonic Society For the third movement he substituted an orchestration of the Scherzo from his Octet In this form the piece was a success and laid the foundations of his British reputation 129 During 1829 and 1830 Mendelssohn wrote his Symphony No 5 known as the Reformation It celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Reformation Mendelssohn remained dissatisfied with the work and did not allow publication of the score 130 Mendelssohn s travels in Italy inspired him to compose the Symphony No 4 in A major known as the Italian Symphony He conducted the premiere in 1833 but did not allow the score to be published during his lifetime as he continually sought to rewrite it 131 The Scottish Symphony Symphony No 3 in A minor was written and revised intermittently between 1829 when Mendelssohn noted down the opening theme during a visit to Holyrood Palace 132 and 1842 when it was given its premiere in Leipzig the last of his symphonies to be premiered in public This piece evokes Scotland s atmosphere in the ethos of Romanticism but does not employ any identified Scottish folk melodies 133 He wrote the symphony cantata Lobgesang Hymn of Praise in B flat major posthumously named Symphony No 2 to mark the celebrations in Leipzig of the supposed 400th anniversary of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg the first performance took place on 25 June 1840 134 Other orchestral music Edit Trumpet part top and the main theme in the violin part bottom of the Wedding March from Mendelssohn s Op 61 Mendelssohn wrote the concert overture The Hebrides Fingal s Cave in 1830 inspired by visits to Scotland around the end of the 1820s He visited Fingal s Cave on the Hebridean isle of Staffa as part of his Grand Tour of Europe and was so impressed that he scribbled the opening theme of the overture on the spot including it in a letter he wrote home the same evening 135 He wrote other concert overtures notably Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Meeresstille und gluckliche Fahrt 1828 inspired by a pair of poems by Goethe 136 and The Fair Melusine Die schone Melusine 1830 137 A contemporary writer considered these works as perhaps the most beautiful overtures that so far we Germans possess 138 Mendelssohn also wrote in 1839 an overture to Ruy Blas commissioned for a charity performance of Victor Hugo s drama which the composer hated 139 His incidental music to A Midsummer Night s Dream Op 61 including the well known Wedding March was written in 1843 seventeen years after the Overture 140 Concertos Edit Violin Concerto Op 64 main theme of second movement The Violin Concerto in E minor Op 64 1844 was written for Ferdinand David David who had worked closely with Mendelssohn during the piece s preparation gave the premiere of the concerto on his Guarneri violin 141 Joseph Joachim called it one of the four great violin concertos along with those of Beethoven Brahms and Bruch 142 Mendelssohn also wrote a lesser known early concerto for violin and strings in D minor 1822 four piano concertos no 0 in A minor 1822 1 in G minor 1831 2 in D minor 1837 and 3 in E minor a posthumously published fragment from 1844 two concertos for two pianos and orchestra E major which he wrote at 14 1823 and A flat major at 15 1824 and another double concerto for violin and piano 1823 In addition there are several single movement works for soloist and orchestra Those for piano are the Rondo Brillante of 1834 the Capriccio Brillante of 1832 and the Serenade and Allegro Giocoso of 1838 126 He also wrote two concertinos Konzertstucke Op 113 and 114 originally for clarinet basset horn and piano Op 113 was orchestrated by the composer 143 Chamber music Edit Mendelssohn s mature output contains numerous chamber works many of which display an emotional intensity lacking in some of his larger works In particular his String Quartet No 6 the last of his string quartets and his last major work written following the death of his sister Fanny is in the opinion of the historian Peter Mercer Taylor exceptionally powerful and eloquent 144 Other mature works include two string quintets sonatas for the clarinet cello viola and violin and two piano trios 126 For the Piano Trio No 1 in D minor Mendelssohn uncharacteristically took the advice of his fellow composer Ferdinand Hiller and rewrote the piano part in a more Romantic Schumannesque style considerably heightening its effect 145 Piano music Edit Advertisement for the Organ Sonatas in the Musical World 24 July 1845 The musicologist Glenn Stanley observes that u nlike Brahms unlike his contemporaries Schumann Chopin and Liszt and unlike his revered past masters Mendelssohn did not regard the piano as a preferred medium for his most significant artistic statements 146 Mendelssohn s Songs Without Words Lieder ohne Worte eight cycles each containing six lyric pieces two published posthumously remain his most famous solo piano compositions They became standard parlour recital items even during the composer s lifetime 147 and their overwhelming popularity according to Todd has itself caused many critics to underrate their musical value 148 As example Charles Rosen equivocally commented despite noting how much beautiful music they contain that i t is not true that they are insipid but they might as well be 149 During the 19th century composers who were inspired to produce similar pieces of their own included Charles Valentin Alkan his five sets of Chants each ending with a barcarolle and Anton Rubinstein 150 Other notable piano works by Mendelssohn include his Variations serieuses Op 54 1841 the Rondo Capriccioso the set of six Preludes and Fugues Op 35 written between 1832 and 1837 and the Seven Characteristic Pieces Op 7 1827 126 Organ music Edit Mendelssohn played and composed for organ from the age of 11 until his death His primary organ works are the Three Preludes and Fugues Op 37 1837 and the Six Sonatas Op 65 1845 of which Eric Werner wrote next to Bach s works Mendelssohn s Organ Sonatas belong to the required repertory of all organists 151 Opera Edit Mendelssohn wrote some Singspiele for family performance in his youth His opera Die beiden Neffen The Two Nephews was rehearsed for him on his 15th birthday 40 1829 saw Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde Son and Stranger or Return of the Roamer a comedy of mistaken identity written in honour of his parents silver anniversary and unpublished during his lifetime In 1825 he wrote a more sophisticated work Die Hochzeit des Camacho Camacho s Wedding based on an episode in Don Quixote for public consumption It was produced in Berlin in 1827 but coolly received Mendelssohn left the theatre before the conclusion of the first performance and subsequent performances were cancelled 152 Although he never abandoned the idea of composing a full opera and considered many subjects including that of the Nibelung saga later adapted by Wagner about which he corresponded with his sister Fanny 153 he never wrote more than a few pages of sketches for any project In Mendelssohn s last years the opera manager Benjamin Lumley tried to contract him to write an opera from Shakespeare s The Tempest on a libretto by Eugene Scribe and even announced it as forthcoming in 1847 the year of Mendelssohn s death The libretto was eventually set by Fromental Halevy 154 At his death Mendelssohn left some sketches for an opera on the story of the Lorelei 155 Choral works Edit Part of the overture to Elijah arranged by Mendelssohn for piano duet manuscript in the Library of Congress Mendelssohn s two large biblical oratorios St Paul in 1836 and Elijah in 1846 are greatly influenced by J S Bach The surviving fragments of an unfinished oratorio Christus consist of a recitative a chorus There Shall a Star Come out of Jacob and a male voice trio 156 Strikingly different is the more overtly Romantic Die erste Walpurgisnacht The First Walpurgis Night a setting for chorus and orchestra of a ballad by Goethe describing pagan rituals of the Druids in the Harz mountains in the early days of Christianity This score has been seen by the scholar Heinz Klaus Metzger as a Jewish protest against the domination of Christianity 157 Mendelssohn wrote five settings from The Book of Psalms for chorus and orchestra Schumann opined in 1837 that his version of Psalm 42 was the highest point that he Mendelssohn reached as a composer for the church Indeed the highest point recent church music has reached at all 158 Mendelssohn also wrote many smaller scale sacred works for unaccompanied choir such as a setting of Psalm 100 Jauchzet dem Herrn alle Welt and for choir with organ Most are written in or translated into English Among the most famous is Hear My Prayer whose second half contains O for the Wings of a Dove which became often performed as a separate item The piece is written for full choir organ and a treble or soprano soloist Mendelssohn s biographer Todd comments The very popularity of the anthem in England later exposed it to charges of superficiality from those contemptuous of Victorian mores 159 A hymn tune Mendelssohn an adaptation by William Hayman Cummings of a melody from Mendelssohn s cantata Festgesang Festive Hymn a secular 1840s composition which Mendelssohn felt unsuited to sacred music has become the standard tune for Charles Wesley s popular Christmas hymn Hark The Herald Angels Sing 134 Songs Edit Mendelssohn wrote many songs both for solo voice and for duet with piano It has been asserted that from 1819 when he was 10 until his death there was scarcely a single month in which he was not occupied with song composition 160 Many of these songs are simple or slightly modified strophic settings 161 Some such as his best known song Auf Flugeln des Gesanges On Wings of Song became popular 162 The scholar Susan Youens comments If Mendelssohn s emotional range in lied was narrower than Schubert s that is hardly surprising Schubert composed many more songs than Mendelssohn across a wider spectrum and whilst Schubert had a declared intent to modernize the song style of his day t his was not Mendelssohn s mission 163 A number of songs written by Mendelssohn s sister Fanny originally appeared under her brother s name this may have been partly due to the prejudice of the family and partly to her own retiring nature 164 In 1842 this resulted in an embarrassing moment when Queen Victoria receiving Felix at Buckingham Palace expressed her intention of singing to the composer her favourite of his songs Italien to words by Franz Grillparzer which Felix confessed was by Fanny 165 166 Performer Edit During his lifetime Mendelssohn became renowned as a keyboard performer both on the piano and organ One of his obituarists noted First and chiefest we esteem his pianoforte playing with its amazing elasticity of touch rapidity and power next his scientific and vigorous organ playing his triumphs on these instruments are fresh in public recollection 167 In his concerts and recitals Mendelssohn performed works by some of his German predecessors notably Carl Maria von Weber Beethoven and J S Bach 168 whose organ music he brought back into the repertoire virtually alone 169 Mendelssohn admired the grand pianos of the Viennese maker Conrad Graf he acquired one in 1832 which he used in the family house and recitals in Berlin and later another for use in Dusseldorf 170 In private and public performances Mendelssohn was celebrated for his improvisations On one occasion in London when asked by the soprano Maria Malibran after a recital to extemporise he improvised a piece which included the melodies of all the songs she had sung The music publisher Victor Novello who was present remarked He has done some things that seem to me impossible even after I have heard them done 171 At another recital in 1837 where Mendelssohn played the piano for a singer Robert Schumann ignored the soprano and wrote Mendelssohn accompanied like a God 172 Conductor Edit Mendelssohn was a noted conductor both of his own works and of those by other composers At his London debut in 1829 he was noted for his innovatory use of a baton then a great novelty 173 But his novelty also extended to taking great care over tempo dynamics and the orchestral players themselves both rebuking them when they were recalcitrant and praising them when they satisfied him 174 It was his success while conducting at the Lower Rhine music festival of 1836 that led to him taking his first paid professional position as director at Dusseldorf Among those appreciating Mendelssohn s conducting was Hector Berlioz who in 1843 invited to Leipzig exchanged batons with Mendelssohn writing When the Great Spirit sends us to hunt in the land of souls may our warriors hang our tomahawks side by side at the door of the council chamber 175 At Leipzig Mendelssohn led the Gewandhaus Orchestra to great heights although concentrating on the great composers of the past already becoming canonised as the classics he also included new music by Schumann Berlioz Gade and many others as well as his own music 176 One critic who was not impressed was Richard Wagner he accused Mendelssohn of using tempos in his performances of Beethoven symphonies that were far too fast 177 Editor Edit Mendelssohn s interest in baroque music was not limited to the Bach St Matthew Passion which he had revived in 1829 He was concerned in preparing and editing such music whether for performance or for publication to be as close as possible to the original intentions of the composers including wherever possible a close study of early editions and manuscripts This could lead him into conflict with publishers for instance his edition of Handel s oratorio Israel in Egypt for the London Handel Society 1845 evoked an often contentious correspondence with Mendelssohn refusing for example to add dynamics where not given by Handel or to add parts for trombones Mendelssohn also edited a number of Bach s works for organ and apparently discussed with Robert Schumann the possibility of producing a complete Bach edition 178 Teacher Edit Although Mendelssohn attributed great importance to musical education and made a substantial commitment to the Conservatoire he founded in Leipzig he did not greatly enjoy teaching and took only a very few private pupils who he believed had notable qualities 179 Such students included the composer William Sterndale Bennett the pianist Camille Marie Stamaty the violinist and composer Julius Eichberg and Walther von Goethe grandson of the poet 180 At the Leipzig Conservatoire Mendelssohn taught classes in composition and ensemble playing 181 Reputation and legacy EditThe first century Edit The reconstructed Mendelssohn monument near Leipzig s St Thomas Church dedicated in 2008 182 In the immediate wake of Mendelssohn s death he was mourned both in Germany and England However the conservative strain in Mendelssohn which set him apart from some of his more flamboyant contemporaries bred a corollary condescension amongst some of them toward his music Mendelssohn s relations with Berlioz Liszt and others had been uneasy and equivocal Listeners who had raised questions about Mendelssohn s talent included Heinrich Heine who wrote in 1836 after hearing the oratorio St Paul that his work was characterized by a great strict very serious seriousness a determined almost importunate tendency to follow classical models the finest cleverest calculation sharp intelligence and finally complete lack of naivete But is there in art any originality of genius without naivete 183 184 Such criticism of Mendelssohn for his very ability which could be characterised negatively as facility was taken to further lengths by Richard Wagner Mendelssohn s success his popularity and his Jewish origins irked Wagner sufficiently to damn Mendelssohn with faint praise three years after his death in an anti Jewish pamphlet Das Judenthum in der Musik 185 Mendelssohn has shown us that a Jew may have the amplest store of specific talents may own the finest and most varied culture the highest and tenderest sense of honour yet without all these pre eminences helping him were it but one single time to call forth in us that deep that heart searching effect which we await from art The washiness and the whimsicality of our present musical style has been pushed to its utmost pitch by Mendelssohn s endeavour to speak out a vague an almost nugatory Content as interestingly and spiritedly as possible 186 n 15 The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche expressed consistent admiration for Mendelssohn s music in contrast to his general scorn for Teutonic Romanticism At any rate the whole music of romanticism e g Schumann and Wagner was second rate music from the very start and real musicians took little notice of it Things were different with Felix Mendelssohn that halcyon master who thanks to his easier purer happier soul was quickly honoured and just as quickly forgotten as a lovely incident in German music 187 Some readers however have interpreted Nietzsche s characterization of Mendelssohn as a lovely incident as condescending 188 In the 20th century the Nazi regime and its Reichsmusikkammer cited Mendelssohn s Jewish origin in banning performance and publication of his works even asking Nazi approved composers to rewrite incidental music for A Midsummer Night s Dream Carl Orff obliged 189 Under the Nazis Mendelssohn was presented as a dangerous accident of music history who played a decisive role in rendering German music in the 19th century degenerate 190 The German Mendelssohn Scholarship for students at the Leipzig Conservatoire was discontinued in 1934 and not revived until 1963 The monument dedicated to Mendelssohn erected in Leipzig in 1892 was removed by the Nazis in 1936 A replacement was erected in 2008 182 The bronze statue of Mendelssohn by Clemens Buscher outside the Dusseldorf Opera House was also removed and destroyed by the Nazis in 1936 A replacement was erected in 2012 Mendelssohn s grave remained unmolested during the Nazi years 191 192 Mendelssohn s reputation in Britain remained high throughout the 19th century Prince Albert inscribed in German a libretto for the oratorio Elijah in 1847 To the noble artist who surrounded by the Baal worship of false art has been able like a second Elijah through genius and study to remain true to the service of true art 193 In 1851 an adulatory novel by the teenaged Elizabeth Sara Sheppard was published Charles Auchester 194 The book features as its leading character the Chevalier Seraphel an idealized portrait of Mendelssohn and remained in print for nearly 80 years 195 In 1854 Queen Victoria requested that the Crystal Palace include a statue of Mendelssohn when it was rebuilt n 16 Mendelssohn s Wedding March from A Midsummer Night s Dream was played at the wedding of Queen Victoria s daughter Princess Victoria The Princess Royal to Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia in 1858 and it remains popular at marriage ceremonies 197 Mendelssohn s pupil Sterndale Bennett was a major force in British musical education until his death in 1875 and a great upholder of his master s traditions he numbered among his pupils many of the next generation of English composers including Sullivan Hubert Parry and Francis Edward Bache 198 By the early twentieth century many critics including Bernard Shaw began to condemn Mendelssohn s music for its association with Victorian cultural insularity Shaw in particular complained of the composer s kid glove gentility his conventional sentimentality and his despicable oratorio mongering 199 In the 1950s the scholar Wilfrid Mellers complained of Mendelssohn s spurious religiosity which reflected the element of unconscious humbug in our morality 200 A contrasting opinion came from the pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni who considered Mendelssohn a master of undisputed greatness and an heir of Mozart 201 Busoni like earlier virtuosi such as Anton Rubinstein 202 and Charles Valentin Alkan 203 regularly included Mendelssohn s piano works in his recitals Modern opinions Edit Felix Mendelssohn by Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow 1834 Appreciation of Mendelssohn s work has developed since the mid 20th century together with the publication of a number of biographies placing his achievements in context 204 Mercer Taylor comments on the irony that this broad based reevaluation of Mendelssohn s music is made possible in part by a general disintegration of the idea of a musical canon an idea which Mendelssohn as a conductor pianist and scholar had done so much to establish 205 The critic H L Mencken concluded that if Mendelssohn indeed missed true greatness he missed it by a hair 206 Charles Rosen in a chapter on Mendelssohn in his 1995 book The Romantic Generation both praises and criticizes the composer He calls him the greatest child prodigy the history of Western music has ever known whose command at age 16 surpassed that of Mozart or Chopin at 19 the possessor at an early age of a control of large scale structure unsurpassed by any composer of his generation and a genius with a profound comprehension of Beethoven Rosen believes that in the composer s later years without losing his craft or genius he renounced his daring but he calls Mendelssohn s relatively late Violin Concerto in E minor the most successful synthesis of the Classical concerto tradition and the Romantic virtuoso form Rosen considers the Fugue in E minor later included in Mendelssohn s Op 35 for piano a masterpiece but in the same paragraph calls Mendelssohn the inventor of religious kitsch in music Nevertheless he points out how the dramatic power of the juncture of religion and music in Mendelssohn s oratorios is reflected throughout the music of the next fifty years in the operas of Meyerbeer and Giuseppe Verdi and in Wagner s Parsifal 207 A large portion of Mendelssohn s 750 works still remained unpublished in the 1960s but most of them are now available 208 A scholarly edition of Mendelssohn s complete works and correspondence is in preparation but is expected to take many years to complete and will be in excess of 150 volumes This includes a modern and fully researched catalogue of his works the Mendelssohn Werkverzeichnis MWV 209 Mendelssohn s oeuvre has been explored more deeply n 17 Recordings of virtually all of Mendelssohn s published works are now available and his works are frequently heard in the concert hall and on broadcasts 210 R Larry Todd noted in 2007 in the context of the impending bicentenary of Mendelssohn s birth the intensifying revival of the composer s music over the past few decades and that his image has been largely rehabilitated as musicians and scholars have returned to this paradoxically familiar but unfamiliar European classical composer and have begun viewing him from new perspectives 211 Notes and references EditNotes ˈ m ɛ n d el s en s oʊ n MEN del sen sohn German ˈjaːkɔp ˈluːtvɪc ˈfeːlɪks ˈmɛndl szoːn baʁˈtɔldi The overwhelming majority of printed sources in English e g see sources in references and listings of recordings at Amazon com and elsewhere use the form Mendelssohn and not Mendelssohn Bartholdy The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy note the parentheses as the entry title with Mendelssohn used in the body text In German and some other languages the surname Mendelssohn Bartholdy sometimes hyphenated is generally used When founded in 1843 this institution was officially known as the Leipziger Konservatorium der Musik 1 English language Mendelssohn authorities for example R Larry Todd and Erich Werner refer to it as the Leipzig Conservatory 2 3 Since 1806 Hamburg had been an independent city the Free Imperial City of Hamburg it was annexed to the First French Empire by Napoleon in 1810 The translation was reprinted by Giovanni Mardersteig at the Officina Bodoni in 1971 35 After Bach s death in 1750 the Passion had been performed a few times until about 1800 by Bach s successors as Thomaskantor in Leipzig 41 In 1842 Mendelssohn was awarded by the King the honour Pour le Merite for Sciences and Arts 57 In its own English self designation the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre HMT website accessed 6 November 2017 On this occasion when Bennett was 17 and Mendelssohn 24 Mendelssohn immediately invited Bennett to visit him in Germany If I come said Bennett may I come to be your pupil No no was the reply you must come to be my friend 66 One assessment of the type of stroke from which the Mendelssohn family suffered is subarachnoidal haemorrhage 76 His friend the cleric Julius Schubring noted that although Mendelssohn entertained a feeling of affectionate reverence for his spiritual adviser the pastor Friedrich Philipp Wilmsen 1770 1831 at the Reformed Parochial Church it is true that he did not go very often to hear him perform Divine Service 87 The debate became heated when it was discovered that the Mendelssohn scholar Eric Werner had been over enthusiastic in his interpretation of some documentation in an attempt to establish Felix s Jewish sympathies See The Musical Quarterly vols 82 83 1998 with articles by J Sposato Leon Botstein and others for expressions of both points of view and see Conway 2012 91 for a tertium quid Mercer Taylor wrote that although there was no currently available hard evidence of a physical affair between the two absence of evidence is not evidence of absence 104 Clive Brown wrote that it has been rumoured that papers tend to substantiate the notion of an affair between Mendelssohn and Lind though with what degree of reliability must remain highly questionable 105 Das was mir eine Musik ausspricht die ich liebe sind mir nicht zu unbestimmte Gedanken um sie in Worte zu fassen sondern zu bestimmte From a letter to Marc Andre Souchay of 15 October 1842 Mendelssohn s own emphases p 298 Echoes of such views survive today in critiques of Mendelssohn s alleged mediocrity For a modern example see Damian Thompson Why did Mendelssohn lose his mojo Daily Telegraph 11 November 2010 retrieved 25 September 2017 It was the only statue in the Palace made of bronze and the only one to survive the 1936 fire that destroyed the Palace The statue is now situated in Eltham College London 196 See for example the conference Viewing Mendelssohn Viewing Elijah held at Arizona State University in 2009 to mark the composer s bicentenary Accessed 12 September 2021 References Geschichte der Hochschule in German website of the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Leipzig retrieved 26 January 2019 Todd 2003 pp 450 451 Werner 1963 pp 385 389 Conway 2012 p 194 Conway 2012 pp 147 148 a b c d Todd 2003 p 33 Todd 2003 pp 27 29 Moscheles 1873 p 98 vol I Mercer Taylor 2000 p 1 Conway 2012 pp 27 28 Brown 2003 p 115 Todd 2003 pp 92 165 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 29 Conway 2012 p 151 Todd 2003 pp 14 15 Werner 1963 pp 36 38 Todd 2003 p 139 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 31 Todd 2003 pp 35 36 Todd 2003 pp 37 38 Todd 2003 p 44 Werner 1963 pp 8 9 Werner 1963 p 18 Todd 2003 p 36 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 36 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 35 36 Conway 2012 p 242 Brown 2003 p 80 Kennedy Center notes Kennedy center org 17 February 2011 Archived from the original on 16 June 2013 Retrieved 17 December 2017 Temperley 2008 3 Moscheles 1873 p 65 Todd 2003 pp 167 168 Todd 2003 pp 70 71 Todd 2003 p 154 Barr 1978 p 84 Todd 2003 pp 171 172 Todd 2003 p 89 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 41 42 93 Todd 2003 pp 188 190 269 270 a b Todd 2001 2 Spitta 1972 p 568 vol 2 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 73 75 Todd 2003 pp 193 198 Devrient 1869 p 57 Todd 2001 3 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 112 114 Todd 2003 pp 285 286 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 118 Todd 2001 4 Todd 2003 p 303 Todd 2003 pp 444 446 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 143 Daverio amp Sams 2001 7 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 146 147 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 147 Todd 2003 pp 403 408 Orden Pour le Merite fur Wissenschaften und Kunste 1975 Die Mitglieder des Ordens 1 1842 1881 PDF Berlin Gebr Mann Verlag p 66 ISBN 978 3 7861 6189 9 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 163 164 168 170 182 185 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 179 198 a b Conway 2012 pp 193 194 Todd 2003 p 214 Conway 2009 pp xvi xvii See The Journey North in Mendelssohn in Scotland website accessed 9 January 2015 Mendelssohn Felix 1809 1847 English Heritage Retrieved 16 December 2017 Bennett 1907 p 29 Bennett 1907 p 30 Bennett 1907 p 43 Hensel 1884 p 292 vol I Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 172 173 Todd 2003 p 439 Todd 2003 pp 514 515 Duggan 1998 pp 11 35 Conway 2009 p xviii Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 198 203 a b Sterndale Bennett 1955 p 376 S Schmidler et al Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy 1809 1847 the mystery of his early death in German in Fortschritte der neurologie Psychologie 74 9 September 2006 pp 522 527 summarized in English on NCBI website accessed 1 March 2018 Werner 1963 p 497 Todd 2003 p 567 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 206 Hensel 1884 Todd 2003 p xxii Devrient 1869 p 182n Devrient 1869 p 91 Brown 2003 pp 47 53 Visual Artwork by Felix Mendelssohn The Mendelssohn Project website Retrieved 3 December 2017 Mendelssohn 1986 pp x xiii Todd 1991 p 227 Brown 2003 p 84 Devrient 1869 pp 9 10 Werner 1963 pp 42 43 Conway 2012 pp 173 184 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 144 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 98 Todd 2003 p 252 Hiller 1874 pp 23 24 Locke 1986 pp 107 114 Todd 2003 pp 102 347 Todd 2003 pp 485 486 Schoeps 2009 pp 211 214 Schoeps 2009 p 163 The Mendelssohn Papers Bodleian Library website Retrieved 3 December 2017 Schoeps 2009 p 193 a b Duchen Jessica Conspiracy of Silence Could the Release of Secret Documents Shatter Felix Mendelssohn s Reputation The Independent 12 January 2009 Retrieved 4 August 2014 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 192 Brown 2003 p 33 Biddlecombe 2013 p 85 Sanders 1956 p 466 Chorley 1972 p 194 Sanders 1956 p 467 Youens 2004 p 190 Vitercik 2004 p 71 Brown 2003 p 312 a b Todd 2001 7 Garratt 2004 p 55 Garratt 2004 p 64 Brown 2003 pp 311 314 Brown 2003 pp 311 317 318 Vitercik 2004 pp 71 82 Taruskin 2010 pp 180 183 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 36 37 Todd 2003 pp 61 62 Todd 2003 pp 109 139 Todd 2003 pp 179 180 Todd 2003 pp 102 107 Mendelssohn takes top spot as greatest child prodigy of all time But where s Mozart BBC 13 September 2009 Retrieved 2 February 2019 a b c d Todd 2001 15 Works Todd 2003 pp 214 430 Todd 2003 pp 130 131 Todd 2003 pp 206 207 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 90 92 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 116 117 Eatock 2009 p 39 Todd 2003 p 430 a b Mercer Taylor 2000 p 157 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 85 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 69 70 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 130 Brown 2003 p 359 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 154 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 180 181 Todd 2003 pp 479 481 Steinberg 1998 p 265 Todd 2003 p 266 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 202 Todd 2003 pp 377 378 Stanley 2004 p 149 Brown 2003 p 360 Todd 2003 p xxvii Rosen 1995 p 589 Conway 2012 pp 196 228 Werner 1963 p 424 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 60 61 Hensel 1884 p 159 vol II Conway 2012 p 118 Todd 2003 pp 560 561 Todd 2003 pp 555 556 Todd 2003 pp 269 270 Psalm 42 on Carus Verlag website Retrieved 3 December 2017 Todd 2003 p 468 Youens 2004 p 189 Youens 2004 p 198 Youens 2004 p 192 Youens 2004 p 205 Todd 2003 pp 175 176 Hensel 1884 II pp 168 171 Todd 2003 p 175 Brown 2003 p 202 Brown 2003 pp 206 211 216 222 Stanley 2004 p 148 Todd 1991 p 279 Todd 2003 pp 282 283 Brown 2003 p 217 Todd 2003 p 206 Brown 2003 pp 241 243 245 247 Todd 2003 p 448 Mercer Taylor 2000 pp 143 145 Wagner 1992 p 272 Brown 2003 pp 40 46 Brown 2003 p 261 Todd 2003 p 325 Brown 2003 p 280 a b Mendelssohn kehrt zuruck Rekonstruiertes Denkmal am Dittrichring in German City of Leipzig Retrieved 20 December 2017 Todd 1991 p 360 Todd 2003 pp 448 449 Conway 2012 p 263 Wagner 1995 pp 93 95 Nietzsche 2002 p 138 Todd 2001 14 Music and the Holocaust Carl Orff World ORT Retrieved 3 December 2017 Hansen amp Vogt 2009 cited on web page of Martin Luther Memorial Church Eisenach Archived 2 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy The Jewish Question Classic FM Retrieved 20 December 2017 Mendelssohn s statue returns to Dusseldorf Classical music com BBC Music Magazine Retrieved 20 December 2017 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 200 Sheppard Elizabeth 1891 Charles Auchester Chicago A C McClurg and Co OCLC 2327181 Conway 2012 p 257 Eatock 2009 p 120 Emmett 1996 p 755 Firman 2004 Todd 2003 p 6 Mellers 1957 p 31 Andrew Porter Liner notes to Walter Gieseking s recording of Mendelssohn s Songs without Words Angel 35428 See Rubinstein s concert programmes in Barenboim 1962 passim Smith 2000 pp 97 99 e g Werner 1963 Mercer Taylor 2000 Brown 2003 Todd 2003 Mercer Taylor 2000 p 205 quoted in Todd 2001 14 Rosen 1995 pp 569 598 Mendelssohn Foundation website List of Mendelssohn s Works in German Retrieved 17 December 2017 Official site of the Leipzig Edition of Mendelssohn in German Retrieved 16 December 2017 For example five of his works feature in the British radio station Classic FM s 2017 top 300 Retrieved 16 December 2017 Todd 2007 p xi Sources EditBarenboim Lev Aronovich 1962 Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein in Russian 2 vols ed Leningrad State Musical Publishing House OCLC 16655013 Barr John 1978 The Officina Bodoni Montagnola Verona Books Printed By Giovanni Mardersteig on the Hand Press 1923 1977 London The British Library ISBN 978 0 7141 0398 3 Bennett J R Sterndale 1907 The Life of Sterndale Bennett Cambridge Cambridge University Press OCLC 59807054 Biddlecombe George 2013 Secret Letters and a Missing Memorandum New Light on the Personal Relationship between Felix Mendelssohn and Jenny Lind Journal of the Royal Musical Association 138 1 47 83 doi 10 1080 02690403 2013 771961 S2CID 170879707 Brown Clive 2003 A Portrait of Mendelssohn New Haven and London Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 09539 5 Chorley Henry 1972 Thirty Years Musical Recollections New York Vienna House ISBN 978 0 8443 0026 9 Edited by Ernest Newman Conway David 2009 Short Dark and Jewish Looking Felix Mendelssohn in Britain In Massil Stephen ed The Jewish Year Book 2009 Valentine and Mitchell ISBN 978 0 85303 890 0 Retrieved 2 December 2017 Conway David 2012 Jewry in Music Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 01538 8 Daverio John Sams Eric 2001 Schumann Robert In Deane Root ed Grove Music Online Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 40704 ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 Devrient Eduard 1869 My Recollections of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Translated by N MacFarren London Richard Bentley OCLC 251991611 Duggan Audrey 1998 A Sense of Occasion Mendelssohn in Birmingham 1846 Studley Brewin Books ISBN 978 1 85858 127 9 Eatock Colin 2009 Mendelssohn and Victorian England Farnham Surrey Ashgate ISBN 978 0 7546 6652 3 Emmett William 1996 The national and religious song reader New York Haworth Press ISBN 978 0 7890 0099 6 Firman Rosemary 2004 Bennett Sir William Sterndale 1816 1875 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 2131 Subscription or UK public library membership required Garratt James 2004 Mendelssohn and the Rise of Musical Historicism In Mercer Taylor Peter ed The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 55 70 ISBN 978 0 521 53342 3 Hansen Jorg Vogt Gerald 2009 Blut und Geist Bach Mendelssohn und ihre Musik im Dritten Reich Eisenach Bachhaus Eisenach ISBN 978 3 932257 06 3 Hensel Sebastian 1884 The Mendelssohn Family 4th revised ed London Sampson Low and Co OCLC 655604542 2 volumes Edited by Felix s nephew an important collection of letters and documents about the family Hiller Ferdinand 1874 Mendelssohn Letters and Recollections London MacMillan and Co OCLC 1019332582 Translated by M E von Glehn Locke Ralph P 1986 Music Musicians and the Saint Simonians Chicago and London University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 48902 5 Mellers Wilfrid 1957 Romanticism and the Twentieth Century London OCLC 869299807 Mendelssohn Felix 1986 Felix Mendelssohn A Life in Letters New York ISBN 978 0 88064 060 2 Edited by R Elvers translated by C Tomlinson Mercer Taylor Peter 2000 The Life of Mendelssohn Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 63972 9 Moscheles Charlotte 1873 Life of Moscheles with selections from his Diaries and Correspondence London Hirst and Blackett OCLC 185148728 Nietzsche Friedrich 2002 Beyond Good and Evil Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 77078 1 Translated by Rolf Peter Horstmann and Judith Norman Rosen Charles 1995 The Romantic Generation Harvard ISBN 978 0 674 77933 4 Sanders L G D 1956 Jenny Lind Sullivan and the Mendelssohn Scholarship Musical Times 97 1363 466 467 doi 10 2307 936774 JSTOR 936774 Schoeps Julius S 2009 Das Erbe der Mendelssohns in German Frankfurt S Fischer Verlag ISBN 978 3 10 073606 2 Smith Ronald 2000 Alkan The man the music London Kahn amp Averill ISBN 978 1 871082 73 9 Spitta Philipp 1972 Johann Sebastian Bach 3 vols Translated by Bell Clara Fuller Maitland J A New York Dover Books ISBN 978 0 486 27412 6 Stanley Glenn 2004 The music for keyboard In Mercer Taylor Peter ed The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 189 205 ISBN 978 0 521 53342 3 Steinberg Michael 1998 The Concerto A Listener s Guide Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 802634 1 Sterndale Bennett R 1955 The Death of Mendelssohn Music and Letters 36 4 Taruskin Richard 2010 The Oxford History of Western Music 3 Music in the Nineteenth Century Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 538483 3 Temperley Nicholas 2008 Overture In Deane Root ed Grove Music Online Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 20616 Todd R Larry ed 1991 Mendelssohn and his World Princeton ISBN 978 0 691 02715 9 Todd R Larry 2001 Mendelssohn Felix In Deane Root ed Grove Music Online Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 51795 Todd R Larry 2003 Mendelssohn A Life in Music Oxford New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 511043 2 Todd R Larry 2007 Mendelssohn Essays New York and London Routledge Taylor and Francis Group ISBN 978 0 415 97814 9 Vitercik Greg 2004 Mendelssohn as Progressive In Mercer Taylor Peter ed The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 71 88 ISBN 978 0 521 53342 3 Wagner Richard 1992 My Life New York Da Capo ISBN 978 0 306 80481 6 Translated by Andrew Grey Wagner Richard 1995 Judaism in Music and Other Essays Lincoln NE London University of Nebraska Press ISBN 978 0 8032 9766 1 Translated by W Ashton Ellis Werner Eric 1963 Mendelssohn A New Image of the Composer and his Age New York London Free Press of Glencoe OCLC 479241019 Youens Susan 2004 Mendelssohn s songs In Mercer Taylor Peter ed The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 189 205 ISBN 978 0 521 53342 3 Further reading EditThere are numerous published editions and selections of Mendelssohn s letters The main collections of Mendelssohn s original musical autographs and letters are to be found in the Bodleian Library Oxford University the New York Public Library and the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin The autographs of his letters to Moscheles are in Special Collections at Brotherton Library University of Leeds Mendelssohn Felix 1888 F Moscheles ed Letters of Felix Mendelssohn to Ignaz and Charlotte Moscheles London and Boston OCLC 61618461 Mercer Taylor Peter ed 2004 The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn Cambridge Companions to Music Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 53342 3 Selden Goth Gisela ed 1945 Felix Mendelssohn Letters New York Pantheon Books Inc External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Felix Mendelssohn Wikiquote has quotations related to Felix Mendelssohn Wikisource has original works by or about Felix Mendelssohn Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica article about Felix Mendelssohn Texts Edit Works by Felix Mendelssohn at Project Gutenberg Works by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy at Project Gutenberg Both these relate to Felix Mendelssohn but the Gutenberg system lists him under both names Works by or about Felix Mendelssohn at Internet Archive Felix Mendelssohn at the Musopen project Leipzig Edition of the Works by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy edited by the Sachsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig in German Information about the ongoing complete edition Texts and translations of vocal music by Mendelssohn at The LiederNet Archive Complete Edition Leipzig Edition of the Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in German Information about the ongoing complete edition The Mendelssohn Project A project with the objective of recording of the complete published and unpublished works of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn A Renaissance Man Among the Romantics Felix Mendelssohn at 200 A virtual exhibit of Mendelssohn manuscripts and early editions held at the Irving S Gilmore Music Library Yale University Discovering Mendelssohn BBC Radio 3 Mendelssohn in Scotland Full text of Charles Auchester by Elizabeth Sheppard 1891 edition her novel with a hero based on Mendelssohn Archival material at Leeds University LibraryRecordings Edit See articles on individual works for links to recordings Music scores Edit Free scores by Felix Mendelssohn at the International Music Score Library Project IMSLP The Mutopia Project has compositions by Felix Mendelssohn Free scores by Felix Mendelssohn in the Choral Public Domain Library ChoralWiki Portals Classical music Biography Music Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Felix Mendelssohn amp oldid 1144350805, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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