Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)

Following its occupation by French troops, the family leaves Hamburg and returns to Berlin, the family seat, in 1813. Their home becomes one of the cultural meeting places of the town. The Mendelssohn children receive careful and closely monitored tutoring. Their mother, Lea, a pianist who enjoys Johann Sebastian Bach’s music, gives them their first music lessons. Fanny and Felix are quickly found to be child prodigies.

The family becomes Protestants and add “Bartholdy” as their middle name, which is already used by Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, Lea’s brother (1779 – 1825), and attached to land which the Mendelssohns inherit. In 1816 and 1817, the family lives in Paris, where the children have piano lessons with Marie Bigot (Marie Kiene Bigot de Morogues (1786 – 1820), a talented pianist.

In 1818 Felix completes his elementary school. His father engages the historian, Gustav Adolf Harald Stenzel as private tutor. In October of the same year, he plays in public for the first time with the horn players Heinrich and Joseph Gugel, in Joseph Wolfl’s trio. Also in 1818 he plays Dussek’s “military” concerto from memory (during the same period Fanny, aged 13, plays J.S. Bach’s 24 Piano Preludes from memory.

Along with Fanny, he studies the violin under C.W. Henning, the Court violinist (later with Eduard Rietz), organ lessons with August Wilhelm Bach (1796 – 1869). He follows the practice sessions at the “Singakademie”, directed by Carl Friedrich Zelter, joining the choir as an alto.

In 1819, Zelner, whose earliest documented work is his “Lied zum Geburtstag Meines Guten Vaters” created in Berlin on 11th December 1819, becomes Fanny and Felix’s music teacher. In 1821, he creates a “Singspiel”, or musical comedy, with musicians from the royal chapel, having transformed the family home into a theatre for the occasion.

From then on, he does a lot of composing. On June 18th 1821, in Berlin, hehelps with the creation of “Freischutz”, Carl Maria von Weber’s opera expressing musical romanticism, he accompanies Zelner to Weimar, where he meets Goethe and Hummel. Starting in 1822, the Mendelssohns organise concerts in their home which becomes an attraction for the town’s elite. This affords a fantastic opportunity for Fanny and Felix to showcase their talent.

The same year, the family goes to Switzerland on holiday, and while on the road, they meet a lot of well known actors from the musical world, such as Louis Spohr at Kassel. He also studies drawing with Johann Gottlob Samuel Rosel. In 1824, Ignaz Moscheles, the famous pianist, is in Berlin, and he gives lessons to Fanny and Felix.

In 1825, Felix accompanies his father to Paris. They take advantage of their time there to make contacts with the musical elite. Cherubini, who is Director of the Conservatory is positive about Felix, and he later urges his father to enrol him at the Paris Conservatory. He observes Parisian musical life with humour, and thinks that Liszt (who was 14 at the time), has a lot of fingers but not too much intelligence.

In 1826 the family settles in Leipzigerstrasse. Felix translates Terence’s comedies into German. The Mendelssohn continues to be an important meeting place for Berlin’s cultural life, where Heinrich Heine, Hegel or Alexander von Humboldt, amongst others, get together.

In 1827 Felix Mendelssohn is enrolled at the University of Berlin. In 1829, with Fanny’s help, he creates J.-S Bach’s the “Passion selon Saint Matthieu”, of which his grandfather, Bella Salomon, had given him a copy some years earlier.

He undertakes a long series of journeys abroad, beginning in London on 21st April 1829, where he performs as a pianist and conductor and also composes. He leaves England in November. On November 1st 1830 he arrives in Rome. He becomes friendly with Berlioz. He meets Donizetti in Naples in April. He visits Capri, Pompei and Vesuvius, and accompanied by various he draws landscapes. He arrives in Paris on December 9th 1831 where he seeks out the musical elite such as Chopin, Kalkbrenner, Ferdinand Hiller, Meyerbeer, Pierre Baillot and Habeneck as well as Heine. He catches cholera. In April 1832 he is once again in England. He returns to Berlin at the end of June. In January 1833, he doesn’t get the directorship of the Berlin “Singakademie” and refuses the post of assistant. He gets an order for 3 works for the Philharmonic Society, the musical direction of the 15th “Niederrheinisches Musikfest”. He is in London on May 13th where he plays a solo with Moscheles, or in private, with Paganini. From the 26th to 28th May he is in Dusseldorf to carry out his engagements. He is hired as Musical Director in Dusseldorf. He goes once more to London with his father before taking up his post on October 1st 1833.

Each year he organises 20 concerts in which he also schedules his own works, those of his contemporaries and the Viennese classics.

In March 1836, he becomes doctor honoris causa at the University of Leipzig. He leaves Leipzig to direct the 18th Music Festival in Dusseldorf. While in Frankfurt, he meets Cecile Jeanrenaud, daughter of a pastor, who he marries on March 28th 1837. They visit Freiburg and the Black Forest, and further south, the banks of the Rhine at Koblenz and Bingen. On August 27th Felix is in London, then in Birmingham. On September 27th he rejoins his wife in Frankfurt. In 1838 he organises a series of Historic Conerts, honouring past masters from 100 years ago up until the present day. He has a number of engagements as conductor in a number of German towns.

In September 1841, he is named as King Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s Choirmaster and receives his first order: the choirs of Antigone de Sophocle.  He becomes Director General of Music and is charged with supervising the religious music. He divides his activities between Leipzig, Berlin and England. He creates the Leipzig Conservatory of Music, which opens its doors on April 3rd 1843. There he teaches composition, singing, musical instruments, Moritz Hauptmann, cantor of the Thomasschule, harmony and composition, Ferdinand David, the violin, Robert Schumann, the piano.