Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn was widely recognized from the very start of his career as an extraordinary prodigy, and by the end of his relatively short life—he died at age 38—had emerged as one of the most powerful musicians of the day. He was celebrated both as a magnificent composer and an innovative performer; indeed, in many ways, he was the first modern conductor, as we conceive of that role today. Mendelssohn’s personal circumstances were unusual among composers of his stature in that he came from a distinguished and wealthy family, benefited from a superb education, and enjoyed a loving marriage. 

Early Years: The Prodigy

The music that Mendelssohn composed as a teenager, and even earlier, is astonishing. Mozart’s prodigious gifts reflect his all-around musicianship, performance skills, and phenomenal memory. Truth be told, however, we hear few of the works that Mozart composed before the age of 20. Mendelssohn not only wrote a staggering quantity of early pieces, but some are among the supreme gems of the 19th century, notably his String Octet, Op. 20 (1825), which he wrote at age 16, and the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, dating from the next year. Before the age of 20, he had composed dramatic works, symphonies, chamber music, choral music, and piano works, including many popular Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words).

Mendelssohn: Lied ohne Worte in E major for Piano, Op. 19b, No. 1

Mendelssohn hailed from a prosperous Jewish family that was part of Germany’s intellectual and artistic elite. His paternal grandfather was the celebrated Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Felix’s banker father, Abraham, eventually converted his children to Protestantism, and later, along with his wife, followed suit. Sandwiched between eminent figures, he once quipped “formerly I was the son of my father, now I am the father of my son.” Abraham adopted the surname Bartholdy; the composer usually performed and published as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

The family’s home in Berlin was a vibrant center of cultural activity where many of Mendelssohn’s works, as well as ones by his brilliant older sister Fanny, were first performed during Sunday “musicales.” The Mendelssohn children received an excellent education—what we would now call a solid liberal arts foundation—that included literature, foreign languages, and philosophy. Felix had a particular passion for Latin and Greek literature (some of which he translated into German) that inspired several compositions. His gifts were not limited to music: they are also evident in impressive writings, sketches, and watercolors.

Middle Years: The Bach Revival and European Travels

When Mendelssohn was 12, he met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the preeminent writer and intellectual of the day, who offered enthusiastic support. Goethe’s friend Carl Friedrich Zelter was Mendelssohn’s teacher, from whom he received rigorous training. Zelter was particularly enamored of Bach’s music and passed this love along to his student. A landmark event came in March 1829, when the 20-year-old Mendelssohn conducted Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Berlin. The performance, in an abridged and re-orchestrated version by Mendelssohn, attracted a large, enthusiastic audience that included the poet Heinrich Heine and philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. This engagement helped to spur a broader interest in Baroque music and influenced many of Mendelssohn’s own compositions.

A month after the legendary Bach performance, Mendelssohn embarked on a multi-year “grand tour” of Europe. He had already traveled often as a teenager, including to Paris, but now started in England and Scotland before crisscrossing the Continent with periodic returns home to Berlin. For years to come, these experiences on the road would leave traces on his compositions, such as the Hebrides Overture (1830, rev. 1832) and the “Scottish” and “Italian” symphonies (1841–42 and 1833, rev. 1834). 

Later Career: “Music Director of Europe”

By his mid-20s, Mendelssohn was esteemed not only as a leading composer and performer—a pianist, organist, and conductor—but also as an immensely powerful force in German musical culture more broadly. He continued to travel widely (making a total of ten trips to England, where he enjoyed particular success), knew almost everyone of cultural importance, and emerged as a—or perhaps the—central musical figure of his day, the unofficial “Music Director of Europe.”

Following a three-year stint as music director in Düsseldorf, Mendelssohn moved in 1835 to Leipzig, which served as his base for the remaining 12 years of his life. He was the conductor of the eminent Gewandhaus Orchestra, which he raised to new heights of playing through hiring and meticulous rehearsals. He engaged prominent soloists, such as Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt, and the young Joseph Joachim. His programming was pathbreaking, not only furthering the revival of Bach and Handel, but also performing more Mozart and Beethoven, and promoting contemporaries such as Carl Maria von Weber and Robert Schumann. In 1843 Mendelssohn helped to establish a conservatory in Leipzig, of which he was the first director, and which is now named after him. His friend Robert Schumann taught there, as did a host of other outstanding musicians of the day.

Mendelssohn: Quartet in F minor for Strings, Op. 80

At the insistence of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, Mendelssohn was enlisted to reinvigorate concert life in Berlin, jet-setting between Leipzig and there at a time before jets. During the summers, he led major festivals in Germany that were often concentrated on choral music. The range and intensity of these activities eventually took a toll on his health. Not long after the devastating death of his sister, Mendelssohn suffered a series of strokes and died in November 1847. 

Mendelssohn’s Legacy

In the 19th-century musical “War of the Romantics,” the so-called progressive composers, notably Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, and Richard Wagner, championed programmatic approaches that drew upon extramusical inspirations. The “conservatives,” preeminently Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, tended to cultivate earlier traditions. Mendelssohn’s string quartets, for example, were deeply influenced by Beethoven’s. At the same time, however, he pioneered the genre of the concert overture in works like the Hebrides and Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (1828, rev. 1833). His great oratorios, St. Paul (1836) and Elijah (1846, rev. 1847), again inspired by Bach and Handel, sparked new interest in the genre for other Romantics.

Mendelssohn’s posthumous legacy was complicated by the antisemitic writings of Wagner, who viciously attacked him despite being himself influenced by his music. During the Nazi period, Mendelssohn’s music was banned, and the prominent statue of him in Leipzig was destroyed. Only in recent decades has the full range of his compositions become clear, including, finally, a complete edition of his music that started to appear in 1997. 

Watching and Listening

Mendelssohn composed impressive chamber pieces over his entire career with the most outstanding work written at age 16: the Octet for Strings, basically a double string quartet. Before this came three piano quartets that were released as his official Opp. 1, 2, and 3 (1822, 1823, 1824), dedicated to his teacher Zelter and to Goethe. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Digital Archive offers these works as well as his five mature string quartets, in which he confronted the imposing Classical tradition with a Romantic sensibility. He wrote his Quartet No. 1, Op. 12 (1829), at age 20, and No. 2, Op. 13, two years earlier. There followed an impressive set of three string quartets, Op. 44 (1838), and a final quartet, Op. 80 (1847), composed soon after the death of his beloved sister Fanny. The CMS Archive also features his two string quintets, Opp. 18 and 87 (1826–32, 1845).

Mendelssohn: Quintet No. 2 in B-flat major for Two Violins, Two Violas, and Cello, Op. 87

Further beloved chamber repertoire includes two piano trios: the D minor, Op. 49 (1839), and the C Minor, Op. 66 (1845), one of several works that incorporates a chorale melody, lending it a religious tone. Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words) were among the most popular of his compositions and sold well for the domestic market. Many of his concertos as well as symphonic, dramatic, and choral works were first performed at his family home despite requiring a large number of musicians. Listen as an example to his Double Concerto in D minor for Violin, Piano, and Strings (1823). 

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