When and where was Felix Mendelssohn born?
Felix Mendelssohn was born on the 3rd of February 1809 in Hamburg, at the time an independent city-state. He died on the 4th of November 1847 in Leipzig, aged 38, after a series of strokes.
Questions about Felix Mendelssohn
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is Felix Mendelssohn best known for composing?
Mendelssohn's best-known works include the Violin Concerto in E minor, the overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream (which contains the famous Wedding March), the Scottish and Italian Symphonies, the oratorios St. Paul and Elijah, the Hebrides Overture, and the Songs Without Words for solo piano. A melody from his cantata Festgesang became the standard tune for the Christmas carol Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
How did Mendelssohn revive the music of Johann Sebastian Bach?
In 1829, Mendelssohn arranged and conducted a performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion in Berlin, using the orchestra and choir of the Berlin Singakademie. It was one of very few performances since Bach's death and the first ever outside Leipzig. His grandmother Bella Salomon had given him a manuscript copy of the work four years earlier. The performance is regarded as the central event in the revival of Bach's music in Germany and across Europe.
Why was Mendelssohn's music suppressed during the Nazi era?
The Nazi regime and its Reichsmusikkammer banned performance and publication of Mendelssohn's works because of his Jewish ancestry. The monument to Mendelssohn in Leipzig, erected in 1892, was removed in 1936, as was a bronze statue in Düsseldorf. The German Mendelssohn Scholarship at the Leipzig Conservatory was discontinued in 1934 and not revived until 1963. A replacement Leipzig monument was erected in 2008.
What was Felix Mendelssohn's connection to Jenny Lind?
Mendelssohn met the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind in October 1844 and developed a close personal and professional attachment to her. In 2013, George Biddlecombe confirmed in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association that Mendelssohn wrote passionate love letters to Lind. Mendelssohn began the opera Lorelei specifically for her voice and is said to have tailored the aria Hear Ye Israel in Elijah to her. After his death, Lind established the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation in 1849; the first winner, in 1856, was Arthur Sullivan, then aged 14.
Where did Mendelssohn found his music conservatory?
Mendelssohn founded the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843. He persuaded Ignaz Moscheles and Robert Schumann to join him on the faculty, along with the string players Ferdinand David and Joseph Joachim and the music theorist Moritz Hauptmann. After Mendelssohn's death in 1847, Moscheles succeeded him as head of the institution, continuing its musically conservative tradition. The conservatory is now called the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.