Essentials of Music

COMPOSERS

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Born: February 3, 1809. Hamburg, Germany
Died: November 4, 1847. Leipzig, Germany

German composer and conductor. Mendelssohn was an important figure in the revival of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach in the nineteenth century.

The Mendelssohn household was one of the cultural centers of Berlin. The family was wealthy thanks to its banking interests, and its garden home served as a concert hall in which Felix and his sister Fanny often performed and had their works played. It was on just such an occasion that the public heard a marvelous work by the seventeen-year-old Felix: his Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Felix Mendelssohn was something of a prodigy. He wrote his first piece at the age of eleven, beginning a prolific period in which the youth created pieces in virtually every genre from sonatas to concertos and even a Singspiel. At the age of twenty, he conducted a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion at the Berlin Singakademie. This was the first modern performance of the work and was an important event in the nineteenth century rediscovery of Bach.

At about the same time, Felix began to travel widely; the next few years took him to England, Scotland and Italy. Besides spreading his reputation, these journeys were important for the pieces that they yielded. Some, such as his "Italian" symphony and the Hebrides overture, documented his musical impressions of these voyages.

In 1833, Mendelssohn took a conducting post in Düsseldorf. Two years later he took his most important position, as director of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. He remained in Leipzig for another ten years, maintaining a busy schedule of performances, conducting works of contemporaries as well as the old masters. He also founded and directed the Leipzig conservatory. His abilities as a conductor and as an organizer of festivals created a great demand for his services. Because of his schedule, most of his compositional work was restricted to the summer months.

In 1847, Felix was devastated by the death of his sister Fanny, with whom he had an especially close relationship, personally and artistically. His health declined, and after a series of strokes, he died in the same year.

Mendelssohn's music is the most classically oriented of all his generation. This is partly due to his intense study of Bach, Handel and Mozart, and the influence is best seen in his large choral works such as the oratorios St. Paul and Elijah. At the same time, his clarity of form and the effortless outpouring of his melody bring to mind the same qualities in Mozart. Yet he was a true Romantic, cultivating smaller forms (such as the Lied) and brief character pieces for the piano. He also showed the Romantic penchant for imbuing his pieces with extramusical associations; and he had the deep love of literature that marked this generation, a quality that is often an important aspect of his music.

Musical Examples:

Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E minor, Op.64, I

Symphony No.4 in A major "Italian", IV

Works:

Orchestral music, including 5 symphonies (No.3 "Scottish", 1842; No.4 "Italian", 1843; No.5 "Reformation", 1830), concert overtures (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1826; The Hebrides, or Fingal's Cave, 1830), 2 piano concertos, Violin Concerto in E minor (1844)
Dramatic music, including 1 opera and incidental music for 6 plays (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1843)
Choral music, including 2 oratorios (St. Paul, 1836 and Elijah, 1846), cantatas, anthems and part songs
Chamber music, including 6 string quartets, 2 string quintets, piano quartets, 1 octet and various sonatas
Piano music, including Songs Without Words (8 sets, 1829-1845), sonatas, fugues and fantasies
Organ music, solo vocal music, transcriptions and arrangements of Bach, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven

Romantic Era

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