Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) was the most gifted and privileged composer of his generation — the grandson of a philosopher (Moses Mendelssohn), raised in a cultured Berlin household where Bach and Mozart were household gods, fluent in six languages by his teens. He was a prodigy who matured without crisis: his Octet was written at 16, his Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream at 17. He never had to fight the establishment — he was the establishment, appointed Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus at 26, founding the Leipzig Conservatory at 36.

He is responsible more than any other composer for the revival of J.S. Bach's legacy. In 1829, at age 20, he conducted the first public performance of the St. Matthew Passion since Bach's death — a piece that had been effectively lost for nearly a century. The success was enormous and immediate. Bach went from obscurity to canonical status largely because of Mendelssohn's advocacy, and he spent the rest of his career programming Bach's music alongside his own at Leipzig.

The Hebrides Overture, the Scottish and Italian Symphonies, the Violin Concerto, and theSongs Without Words (a genre he effectively invented) form the core of his public reputation. He was the great melodist of the early Romantic era — his tunes are easy to love, which is why his music is often underestimated. The late chamber works — the F minor String Quartet, the Variations Sérieuses — show a more complex and troubled mind than the public works suggest.

StyleClassicizing Romanticism. Cantabile melody, clear formal structures inherited from Mozart and Bach, scoring that is graceful and precise. Music that sounds effortless and often gets mistaken for easy.

Listen: Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, then the Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64.