Tomorrow marks the bicentennial birthday of the famous German composer, conductor, organist and pianist, Felix Mendelssohn. This musical prodigy received his first piano lessons from his mother and harmony instruction from Carl Friedrich Zelter, director of the Berlin Singakademie. He made his professional début on piano at the age of 9, had his setting of Psalm 19 performed by the Berlin Singakademie at the age of 10 and befriended the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Weimar at the age of 12. His admiration and knowledge of Goethe's poems inspired him in his Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Overture of 1828 and the secular cantata Die Erste Walpurgisnacht of 1832.
One of his greatest accomplishments was the resurrection of Johann Sebastian Bach's music; in March 1829, he conducted the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin for the first time since the death of Bach in 1750.
As he did with Bach, the mission of the Mendelssohn Project is to revive the music, letters and artworks of this important Romantic composer as well as the works of his sister Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. Last week the Museum of Jewish Heritage presented a program of 13 world premieres of recital, vocal, and chamber works by Mendelssohn. Many other performing organizations will be highlighting his music throughout the year.
Mendelssohn was highly regarded by his peers. Robert Schumann in the 1840 Neue Zeitschrift referred to him as "The Mozart of the nineteenth century." Franz Liszt purportedly called him "Bach reborn."
If you wish to learn more about his life, feel free to consult Herbert Kupferberg's Felix Mendelssohn: His Life, His family, His Music, Peter Mercer-Taylor's The Life of Mendelssohn and R. Larry Todd's Mendelssohn: A Life, in Music.
Iin the meantime, feel free to sample his Symphony No. 4, 1st movement, by the Cologne New Philharmonic Orchestra. See if you can figure out why it's called the "Italian Symphony".
