Felix Mendelssohn Biography Quotes 4 Report mistakes

Early life and family
Felix Mendelssohn (born Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn in 1809) was a German composer, pianist, organist, and conductor whose career bridged Classical clarity and Romantic expressiveness. He was born in Hamburg to Abraham Mendelssohn, a banker, and Lea Salomon, and was the grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. The family moved to Berlin in 1811 amid Napoleonic upheavals. In 1816 the children, including Felix and his sister Fanny, were baptized into the Reformed Church; at the urging of a well-connected uncle, the family adopted the additional surname Bartholdy, though Felix used Mendelssohn most prominently in public. The Berlin household became a lively cultural salon, frequented by leading thinkers, and the siblings Fanny, Rebecka, and Paul grew up musically literate. Fanny, a prodigiously gifted pianist and composer, was Felixs closest musical confidante throughout his life.

Education and early gifts
Felixs early training combined rigorous discipline and striking inventiveness. He studied piano with Ludwig Berger and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter, director of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. Zelter steeped him in the music of J. S. Bach and Handel, and introduced him to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe at Weimar. The meetings with Goethe left a lasting impression; Mendelssohn played, improvised, and discussed music with the poet, who marveled at the youths poise and versatility. By his mid-teens Mendelssohn had produced works that remain staples: the Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20 (1825), breathtaking for its orchestral sonority written for eight string players, and the Overture to A Midsummer Nights Dream, Op. 21 (1826), composed at age 17 with a maturity that astonished contemporaries. Domestic performances led by Fanny and Felix at their parents home honed his skills as pianist, conductor, and ensemble leader.

Bach revival and first international successes
In 1829 Mendelssohn led a landmark revival of Bachs St. Matthew Passion with the Sing-Akademie, working closely with the singer and actor Eduard Devrient. The event, quickly recognized as historic, ignited a broader 19th-century Bach revival and showcased Mendelssohns curatorial instincts. That same year he made the first of many trips to London, where the Philharmonic Society and the public embraced him. He forged important ties with the pianist-conductor Ignaz Moscheles, who became both mentor and colleague, and he established himself as a composer-conductor able to elicit precise, elegant performances.

Travels and the shaping of a voice
Mendelssohn refined his style through extensive travel. A stormy 1829 voyage to Scotland and the Hebrides inspired The Hebrides (Fingals Cave) Overture (1830-32) and, later, the Symphony in A minor (Scottish), eventually completed in the early 1840s. Time in Italy in 1830-31, absorbing art, landscape, and popular song, yielded the buoyant Symphony in A major (Italian). He also visited Paris and returned frequently to Britain, where audiences and patrons, including Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, admired his poise and musicianship. His circle during these travels included fellow composers and virtuosi; he exchanged ideas widely while remaining anchored to a Classical sense of proportion and form.

Leipzig, the Gewandhaus, and the conservatory
Appointed music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1835, Mendelssohn set a new standard for orchestral discipline and programming. With concertmaster Ferdinand David he developed a clean, transparent ensemble sound and championed both the past and the present. He presented older music with unusual care and brought new works to light, notably conducting the first performance of Franz Schuberts Great C-major Symphony after Robert Schumann drew the score to his attention. He collaborated with Robert and Clara Schumann and gave a platform to Scandinavian colleague Niels Gade. In 1843 he founded the Leipzig Conservatory (Konservatorium), recruiting Moscheles, David, and other distinguished teachers. The school quickly became a premier training ground, marrying technical rigor to stylistic breadth.

Berlin court projects and theatrical music
Summoned in 1841 by King Frederick William IV of Prussia to reinvigorate musical life in Berlin, Mendelssohn split his energies between the Prussian capital and Leipzig. For the court and theaters he composed incidental music to Greek dramas such as Antigone and Oedipus in Colonus, and he returned to Shakespeares comedy with the complete Midsummer Nights Dream music (1842-43), whose Wedding March became a ceremonial staple. The Berlin years proved productive but taxing, and he increasingly preferred the professional standards and collegial atmosphere he had cultivated in Leipzig.

Compositions and style
Mendelssohns catalog shows range more than radicalism. His oratorios St. Paul (1836) and Elijah (1846, premiered to great acclaim in Birmingham under his own baton) display dramatic pacing, luminous choruses, and a reverence for Bach and Handel filtered through Romantic color. The Violin Concerto in E minor (completed 1844, premiered 1845 with Ferdinand David) innovates by allowing the soloist to enter almost immediately, binding movements without breaks, and placing a written-out cadenza before the recapitulation. The piano cycles Songs Without Words distilled intimate lyricism into aphoristic forms cherished by amateurs and professionals alike. Chamber music, including string quartets and the youthful Octet, balances contrapuntal craft and songful melody. Keyboard works and organ sonatas reflect his virtuosity and his debt to earlier masters. Across genres his hallmarks are clarity, deft orchestration, and a poised, singing line.

Personal life and collaborators
In 1837 he married Cecile Jeanrenaud, the daughter of a French Huguenot clergyman. Their marriage was by all accounts affectionate, and they had several children. Family connections shaped his world: Fanny (who married the painter Wilhelm Hensel) remained a crucial sounding board and a formidable composer in her own right; his sister Rebecka married the mathematician P. G. L. Dirichlet; and his brother Paul pursued banking. Professional friendships reinforced his influence: the partnership with Ferdinand David shaped the violin concerto; Moscheles became both ally and faculty member in Leipzig; Niels Gade assisted at the Gewandhaus; and Julius Schubring collaborated on librettos for the oratorios. Mendelssohn also maintained cordial relations with British musical leaders and performed at court for Victoria and Albert.

Identity, criticism, and reputation
Mendelssohns Jewish heritage and Protestant faith were both public facts, and he avoided polemic while honoring musical traditions from Lutheran chorales to Bach cantatas. After his death, currents of nationalism and antisemitism distorted perceptions of his art; Richard Wagners polemics cast him as conventional. Yet the durability of the Octet, the theater music, the symphonies, Elijah, and the Violin Concerto steadily restored his standing. Modern scholarship underscores his role in reviving Bach, professionalizing orchestral and conservatory life, and modeling a cosmopolitan yet disciplined Romanticism.

Final years and legacy
The sudden death of Fanny in May 1847 devastated him. Exhausted by work and grief, he suffered a series of strokes and died in Leipzig on November 4, 1847, at the age of 38. He was buried in Berlin beside Fanny. Colleagues such as Robert and Clara Schumann mourned a friend whose artistic conscience had shaped an era. His institutions endured: the Leipzig Gewandhaus remained a beacon of orchestral excellence, and the conservatory trained generations of European musicians. His music, championed in concert halls and salons from London to Leipzig, retained its appeal for its balance of craft and feeling. Today Mendelssohn is recognized not only as a central composer of the 19th century, but also as a conductor, organizer, and advocate whose efforts helped define the canon and the institutions through which it would be heard.

Our collection contains 4 quotes who is written by Felix, under the main topics: Music.

Other people realated to Felix: Richard Wagner (Composer), Franz Schubert (Composer), Johannes Sebastian Bach (Composer), Clara Schumann (Musician), Robert Schumann (Composer)