Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn (born Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy on 3 February 1809, died 4 November 1847) was a German composer, pianist, organist, and conductor active in the early Romantic period. He wrote symphonies, concertos, piano and organ pieces, and chamber music. Among his most famous works are the String Octet, the overture and incidental music for *A Midsummer Night’s Dream* (which contains the well-known “Wedding March”), the Italian and Scottish Symphonies, the oratorios *St. Paul* and *Elijah*, the *Hebrides Overture*, his mature Violin Concerto, and the melody later used for the Christmas carol “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” His *Songs Without Words* remain his best-known solo piano compositions.

His grandfather was the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Felix was raised without religion until he was baptized into the Reformed Christian church at age seven. Recognized early as a musical prodigy, his cautious parents did not try to exploit his talent. His sister Fanny received a similar musical education and was a gifted composer and pianist; some of her early songs were published under Felix’s name, and her *Easter Sonata* was mistakenly attributed to him after being lost and rediscovered in the 1970s.

Mendelssohn found early success in Germany and sparked renewed interest in Johann Sebastian Bach’s music, especially through his 1829 performance of the *St Matthew Passion*. He traveled widely across Europe as a composer, conductor, and soloist, and his ten visits to Britain—where many of his major works premiered—were a key part of his adult career. His conservative musical tastes set him apart from more adventurous contemporaries like Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Charles-Valentin Alkan, and Hector Berlioz. The Leipzig Conservatory, which he founded, became a stronghold of this anti-radical outlook.

After a long period of critical decline due to changing tastes and antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his creative originality has been reassessed. He is now considered one of the most popular composers of the Romantic era.

**Life**

**Childhood**

Mendelssohn was born on 3 February 1809 in Hamburg, then an independent city-state, in the same house where Ferdinand David—the dedicatee and first performer of his Violin Concerto—would be born a year later. His father, banker Abraham Mendelssohn, was the son of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn; his mother, Lea Salomon, belonged to the Itzig family and was a sister of Jakob Salomon Bartholdy. Felix was the second of four children; his older sister Fanny also showed exceptional musical talent early on.

In 1811, fearing French reprisal for the Mendelssohn bank’s role in breaking Napoleon’s Continental System blockade, the family fled Hamburg in disguise and moved to Berlin. Abraham and Lea aimed to give their children—Fanny, Felix, Paul, and Rebecka—the best education possible. Fanny became a well-known pianist and composer in Berlin musical circles; Abraham initially thought she, not Felix, might be the more musical. However, neither Abraham nor Felix considered it proper for a woman to pursue a professional music career, so she remained an active amateur. Abraham was at first reluctant to let Felix follow music professionally, until it became clear he was seriously committed.

Mendelssohn grew up in an intellectual household. Frequent visitors to the family’s Berlin salon included artists, musicians, and scientists such as Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, and mathematician Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (who later married Felix’s sister Rebecka). As musician Sarah Rothenburg noted, “Europe came to their living room.”

**Surname**

Abraham Mendelssohn renounced Judaism before Felix’s birth, and he and his wife decided against having Felix circumcised. Felix and his siblings were initially raised without religious instruction; on 21 March 1816, they were baptized privately in the family’s Berlin apartment by a Reformed Protestant minister, at which time Felix received the additional names Jakob Ludwig. Abraham and Lea were baptized in 1822 and formally adopted the surname Mendelssohn Bartholdy (which they had used since 1812) for themselves and their children.

The name Bartholdy was added at the suggestion of Lea’s brother, Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, who had inherited a property of that name in Luisenstadt and adopted it as his own surname. In an 1829 letter to Felix, Abraham explained that adopting Bartholdy was meant to show a decisive break with his father Moses’s traditions: “There can no more be a Christian Mendelssohn than there can be a Jewish Confucius.” When starting his musical career, Felix did not entirely drop the name Mendelssohn as Abraham had requested, but out of deference signed his letters and had visiting cards printed as “Mendelssohn Bartholdy.” In 1829, his sister Fanny wrote to him of “Bartholdy […] this name that we all dislike.”

**Career**

**Musical education**

Mendelssohn began piano lessons with his mother at age six, and at seven studied with Marie Bigot in Paris. Later in Berlin, all four Mendelssohn children learned piano from Ludwig Berger, a former student of Muzio Clementi. From at least May 1819, Mendelssohn (initially with his sister Fanny) studied counterpoint and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin, an important influence on his future career.