europeana

Felix Mendelssohn

The com­poser, con­duc­tor and instru­men­tal soloist Felix Mendelssohn is con­sid­ered one of the most impor­tant fig­ures of the Roman­tic period. Some of his most well-known works include the Wed­ding March from A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream, which was played at the wed­ding of Princess Vic­to­ria to Crown Prince Fred­er­ick of Prus­sia in 1858 and is still pop­u­lar at mar­riage cer­e­monies today, the Scot­tish Sym­phony (Sym­phony No. 3) and the Hebrides Over­ture, (also known as Fingal’s Cave).

Jakob Lud­wig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was born on 3 Feb­ru­ary 1809 into a promi­nent Jew­ish fam­ily. His grand­fa­ther, Moses Mendelssohn, was a famous philoso­pher of the Age of Enlight­en­ment, and his father a suc­cess­ful banker. His par­ents cul­ti­vated the inter­est in arts and human­i­ties in their chil­dren, and acquainted them with the most influ­en­tial minds of that time. Among vis­i­tors to their house were Georg Wil­helm Friedrich Hegel, the broth­ers Alexan­der and Wil­helm von Hum­boldt, Hein­rich Heine, Carl Maria von Weber, Louis Spohr and Nic­colò Paganini.

Mendelssohn was often com­pared with Wolf­gang Amadeus Mozart. Also a child prodigy, Mendelssohn had his first piano lessons at the age of six. At the age of nine, he per­formed music in pub­lic for the first time, and began com­pos­ing works that deeply impressed author­i­ta­tive musi­cians like Carl Friedrich Zel­ter.

Zel­ter, the head of the Berlin Sin­gakademie, began to teach Mendelssohn coun­ter­point and com­po­si­tion, and more than any­one influ­enced Mendelssohn’s musi­cal taste and style. A great admirer of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach, Zel­ter made sure that his favourite stu­dent became famil­iar with Bach’s music tech­niques. Mendelssohn would later play a cru­cial role in reviv­ing inter­est in Bach’s music that was con­sid­ered old-fashioned and largely for­got­ten in Europe.

It was also Zel­ter, who intro­duced a 12-year-old Mendelssohn to his friend, Johann Wolf­gang von Goethe. Goethe could not believe “what this lit­tle man [could] do in extem­po­ris­ing and play­ing at sight [bor­der­ing] the mirac­u­lous”, he told Zel­ter. Find­ing inspi­ra­tion in Goethe’s work, Mendelssohn com­posed the over­ture Meer­esstille und Glück­liche Fahrt (Calm Sea and a Pros­per­ous Voy­age, Op. 27) and the can­tata Die Erste Walpur­gis­nacht (The First Walpur­gis Night, Op. 60).

After Zelter’s death in 1832, Mendelssohn hoped to suc­ceed him as con­duc­tor of the Berlin Sin­gakademie, but was defeated. He moved to Düs­sel­dorf, where he took his first paid posi­tion as music direc­tor. Dur­ing this period, he trav­elled a lot to Britain, where his music was par­tic­u­larly highly regarded and where many of his major works were premiered.

In 1835, Mendelssohn took the post of con­duc­tor of the Leipzig Gewand­haus Orches­tra. He was the first and last Gewand­haus con­duc­tor of such a young age. He founded the first Ger­man con­ser­va­tory in Leipzig and, until his death, ded­i­cated him­self to devel­op­ing the musi­cal life of Leipzig.

Mendelssohn com­posed over 750 musi­cal pieces, includ­ing sym­phonies, choral works, cham­ber and solo piano music.