Felix Mendelssohn

Born in Hamburg on February 3, 1809, Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was the grandson of Moses Mendelssohn, a Jewish Enlightenment philosopher. He grew up in Berlin, where his father, a banker who had converted to Protestantism, had settled with his wife and their four children. In 1812, he added the name Bartholdy to the family surname as a sign of his break with the Jewish religion. Like his elder sister Fanny (born 1805), Felix Mendelssohn showed an early aptitude for music, and after their mother's first piano lessons, the children took advantage of a stay in Paris in 1816 to receive advice from Marie Bigot. His multi-disciplinary education included languages, horseback riding and drawing, in which he showed great skill, but music also featured prominently, with teachers Ludwig Berger (piano), Carl Wilhelm Henning and later Eduard Rietz (violin) and Carl Friedrich Zelter (counterpoint and composition), who introduced him to Goethe. Admitted to the Singakademie in 1819 as a viola player, he played his first works and composed his father's youth opera Les Deux Précepteurs. His body of work expanded rapidly, both in the orchestral field, with thirteen symphonies for strings and a symphony and Symphony no. 1 (1824), and in sacred music, piano, lieder and chamber music, with a String Quartet no. 1 and a renowned Octet as early as 1825. The following year, he was only seventeen when he composed the magnificent overture A Midsummer Night's Dream, which he completed for the stage. As a student at the University of Berlin, he had renowned teachers, including Hegel for the philosophy of art, and also met musical luminaries such as pianist Ignaz Moscheles and, in Paris, Luigi Cherubini. His interest in Baroque music became apparent when, on March 11, 1829, he conducted Bach's St. Matthew Passion in Berlin, thus participating in the movement to rediscover the composer. The same year, he made his first trip to England and Scotland, where he wrote the overture Les Hébrides and began composing Symphony no. 3 "Écossaise " (completed in 1842). A second trip to London provided an opportunity to perform his Piano Concerto no. 1 and Capriccio brillante. England was enthusiastic about the pianist and conductor, with Queen Victoria among his admirers. The composer made further trips to Austria, Switzerland and Italy, where the six months he spent touring the country inspired him to write Symphony no. 4, "Italian" (1833). In Paris, he rubbed shoulders with Liszt, Chopin and Meyerbeer, but the Société des Concerts rejected his Symphony no. 5 "Réformation", which remained unpublished for a long time. In Germany, although he was refused Zelter's succession at the Singakademie, he was entrusted for three years with the direction of the South Rhineland Festival in Düsseldorf, where his oratorio Paulus was premiered in 1836. Appointed conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra in 1835, a post he held until his death, he was a regular visitor to Clara and Robert Schumann, with whom he forged a deep friendship. However, it was in Frankfurt, where he was directing the Cäcilien-Verein, that he met Cécile Jeanrenaud, a pastor's daughter whom he married on March 28, 1837, and who would go on to bear him five children. His activities as a pianist and conductor took precedence over those as a composer, all the more so as he dared not refuse the offer of the Prussian king, Frederick William IV, to the post of Generalmusikdirektor at the Berlin court in 1841. And the following year, he was entrusted with the creation of a Conservatory in Leipzig, where he taught and took on Robert Schumann and Gewandhaus violinist Ferdinand David as teachers. Nevertheless, the works Mendelssohn managed to produce were major. He began composing the Lieder ohne Worte(Songs without Words), which he continued until his death, and in 1840 signed the cantata-like Symphony no. 2 "Lobgesang". He was commissioned to write three stage scores, for Racine's Athalie and Sophocles' Œdipe à Colone, but above all for Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The youthful overture was then completed for the premiere, which took place in Potsdam on October 14, 1843. From this work is taken the famous Wedding March, first used for a wedding during the composer's lifetime, then by the Princess Royal of England in 1858, before becoming widespread. On March 13, 1845, failing health prevented him from conducting the premiere of his famous Violin Concerto op. 64, which had been six years in the making. His assistant in Leipzig, the Danish conductor Niels Gade, conducted the work, dedicated to Ferdinand David. On August 26, 1846, Mendelssohn himself conducted his oratorio Elijah in Birmingham during his ninth visit to England. He returned one last time in April 1847, for further performances ofElijah. He met up again with the soprano Jenny Lind, whom he had met three years earlier in Berlin. On his return to Frankfurt, Mendelssohn learned of the death of his beloved sister Fanny on May 14, 1847. Although Mendelssohn's own career had eclipsed Fanny's talent as a composer, they had always maintained a strong relationship. Overwhelmed by the news, he dedicated his last works to her, the String Quartet no. 6 op. 80, the Nachtlied and the oratorio Christus, which he was unable to complete. In Leipzig, on October 3, 1847, he heard his Violin Concerto played by a promising Conservatory student, Joseph Joachim. On November 4, 1847, Felix Mendelssohn died at the age of 38. His prestige and influence were immense at the time, except in the case of Wagner, before his music was banned by the Nazi regime because of his Jewish origins. The prolific composer has since fortunately regained his rightful place among the great names of Romanticism.