Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn was born into one of the most cultivated families in Europe. His grandfather Moses was a celebrated philosopher of the Enlightenment; his father Abraham was a prosperous banker; his sister Fanny was a gifted composer in her own right. Baptized a Protestant in 1816, the young Felix received an extraordinary education in languages, art, philosophy, and music, studying piano with Ludwig Berger and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter.

A child prodigy who gave his first public performance at age nine, Mendelssohn composed his miraculous overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream at seventeen. But he was equally important as a conductor and cultural advocate: his 1829 Berlin performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, a landmark event, was instrumental in reviving interest in Bach’s music. As music director in Leipzig from 1835, he built the Gewandhaus Orchestra into one of Europe’s finest ensembles and founded the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843.

Mendelssohn’s music combines Classical clarity with Romantic expressiveness. His essentially conservative tastes set him apart from more radical contemporaries like Liszt, Wagner, and Berlioz, yet his orchestral writing, particularly his handling of color and atmosphere, was highly influential.