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- Herausgeber: Icon Books
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Serie: The Great Composers
- Sprache: Englisch
Welcome to The Independent's new ebook series The Great Composers, covering fourteen of the giants of Western classical music.Extracted from Michael Steen's book The Lives and Times of the Great Composers, these concise guides, selected by The Independent's editorial team, explore the lives of composers as diverse as Mozart and Puccini, reaching from Bach to Brahms, set against the social, historical and political forces which affected them, to give a rounded portrait of what it was like to be alive and working as a musician at that time.That Mendelssohn was phenomenally gifted is beyond question. Born into a wealthy German Jewish family at the beginning of the 19th century, he was a boy prodigy of the piano, he wrote poetry, painted well, played several instruments, spoke several languages, and was an excellent athlete. At only sixteen he composed the celebrated Octet for Strings, one of the finest pieces in the chamber repertoire. He made friends with Goethe, whom he met as a boy of twelve when the poet was in his 70s, and at twenty was a prime mover in the revival of Bach's music to which we owe so much. Not only an inspiring conductor who did much to raise the standards of performance, he also wrote many works which found enduring fame: his Violin Concerto in E minor, his oratorio Elijah (particularly beloved of the English), his Italian Symphony, his 48 miniatures, Songs Without Words, and his incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, which contains the famous Wedding March.Michael Steen follows Mendelssohn's progress from his cultured and cosmopolitan background to the years of relentless travelling (he went ten times to England and became friends with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert), and his directorship of music at Dusseldorf and at Leipzig – years that would see him exhaust himself until his early death just six months after the death of his adored sister, Fanny.
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Published by Icon Books Ltd,
Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP email: [email protected]
ISBN: 978-1-84831-804-5
Text copyright © 2003, 2010 Michael Steen
The author has asserted his moral rights.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Steen OBE was born in Dublin. He studied at the Royal College of Music, was the organ scholar at Oriel College, Oxford, and has been the chairman of the RCM Society and of the Friends of the V&A Museum, the Treasurer of The Open University, and a trustee of Anvil Arts and of The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation.
Also by the Michael Steen:
The Lives and Times of the Great Composers (ebook and paperback)
Great Operas: A Guide to 25 of the World’s Finest Musical Experiences (ebook and paperback)
Enchantress of Nations: Pauline Viardot, Soprano, Muse and Lover (hardback).
He is currently engaged in a project to publish one hundred ebooks in the series A Short Guide to a Great Opera. Around forty of these have already been published' and further details on these are given at the back of this book.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to our ebook series The Great Composers, covering fourteen of the giants of Western classical music.
Extracted from his book The Lives and Times of the Great Composers, Michael Steen explores the lives of composers as diverse as Mozart and Puccini, reaching from Bach to Brahms, set against the social, historical and political forces which affected them, to give a rounded portrait of what it was like to be alive and working as a musician at that time.
That Mendelssohn was phenomenally gifted is beyond question. Born into a wealthy German Jewish family at the beginning of the 19th century, he was a boy prodigy of the piano, he wrote poetry, painted well, played several instruments, spoke several languages, and was an excellent athlete. At only sixteen he composed the celebrated Octet for Strings, one of the finest pieces in the chamber repertoire. He made friends with Goethe, whom he met as a boy of twelve when the poet was in his 70s, and at twenty was a prime mover in the revival of Bach's music to which we owe so much. Not only an inspiring conductor who did much to raise the standards of performance, he also wrote many works which found enduring fame: his Violin Concerto in E minor, his oratorio Elijah (particularly beloved of the English), his Italian Symphony, his 48 miniatures, Songs Without Words, and his incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, which contains the famous Wedding March.
Michael Steen follows Mendelssohn's progress from his cultured and cosmopolitan background to the years of relentless travelling (he went ten times to England and became friends with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert), and his directorship of music at Dusseldorf and at Leipzig – years that would see him exhaust himself until his early death just six months after the death of his adored sister, Fanny.
MENDELSSOHN
IT IS NO wonder that Berlioz and Mendelssohn never saw eye to eye. Their different personalities and styles are well illustrated in Mendelssohn’s uncharacteristic outburst to his mother: ‘Berlioz’s instrumentation is so disgustingly filthy … that one needs a wash after merely handling one of his scores.’1 Compared to Berlioz, Mendelssohn was sanitised to perfection, almost excessively refined and restrained, almost classical in his clarity and his structures. Thus, Sibelius could claim that ‘after Bach, Mendelssohn was the greatest master of fugue’.2 In Mendelssohn’s music, as in his short life, there is little of that excessive enthusiasm or exaggeration displayed by Berlioz.
On the other hand, we are apt to associate Mendelssohn with religiosity, sentimentality and other ‘unhealthy’ Victorian values. The Victorians loved his oratorios, his melodious sacred music such as ‘O for the Wings of a Dove’, his Songs Without Words. They appropriated him, even to the extent that he might almost have been thought to be an English composer.
Felix Mendelssohn was born on 3 February 1809, just over five years after Berlioz. Whereas Berlioz’ background was insecure and petty bourgeois, Mendelssohn’s was more assured and cosmopolitan. His teacher introduced him to Goethe, whom he visited on several occasions. At the age of twenty, he conducted the revival of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Much of his life was spent relentlessly travelling: he went ten times to England. He directed the music at Düsseldorf and at Leipzig. We shall hear of his marriage, his visits to Queen Victoria and his death, less than six months after his sister Fanny died.
THE MENDELSSOHNS
Moses Mendelssohn, Felix’s grandfather, was the son of an impoverished scribe from Dessau, some 40 miles north of Leipzig. Moses became a very distinguished philosopher. Even so, his name has been eclipsed by others, partly perhaps because he was a contemporary of the genius Immanuel Kant,* partly because he was Jewish. It has been said that the modern history of Jewry in its ‘political and intellectual emancipation’ begins with Moses Mendelssohn.3
Moses Mendelssohn
Moses settled in Berlin when his teacher was appointed chief rabbi there. He became the tutor to the children of a rich silk merchant, then an accountant in the merchant’s office, and then a partner in his firm.4 In 1767, Phaedon, his treatise on the immortality of the soul, was published; it was translated into more than 30 different languages; and it was read by Mozart.5
Moses Mendelssohn worked tirelessly to bridge the gap between trad-itional Jewish and the new secular learning.6 Before the 1781 Edict of Tolerance of Emperor Joseph II, Jews had been outsiders; now, at least north of the Alps, there was more scope for them to become integrated. Moses encouraged this. Many ‘assimilated’, while retaining their religion. Others, including several members of Moses’ own family, went much further: they left the Jewish faith so as to gain full acceptance in European society.*
Moses’ son Abraham married Leah Salomon, who came from a family of prominent and rich Berlin Jews who inherited the right of abode and the right to mint money.** At the time Felix was born, Abraham and his brother Joseph were building their own fortune in their bank, Gebrüder Mendelssohn & Co in Hamburg. One supposes that they lent into businesses such as the thriving Hamburg shipping and calico printing concerns:† 9 at the turn of the century, there were 57 calico printing firms in Hamburg, five of which were under Jewish management; some were large, the biggest had 500 employees.
FLIGHTFROM HAMBURG
Until the French garrison took over in 1806, Hamburg’s Jews were tightly regulated as to residence and occupation. In many Jewish communities, the arrival of the French was greatly welcomed because, as elsewhere, the French introduced their laws and procedures, and the Jews were emancipated. Hamburg became a département
