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Mendelssohn: Works
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In 1833, Mendelssohn he applied for a faculty job at a prominent music school in Berlin, but was turned down. Later that year... he was appointed Music Director of the town of Düsseldorf; two years after that, he was offered the conductor's post by Leipzig's legendary Gewandhaus Orchestra. By this point, he had already begun to write symphonies, more chamber works, and one of his piano concertos, as well as one magnificent oratorio, St. Paul (1836). Ensuing career developments included a post at Berlin's Academy of the Arts and the origination of the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843. More works - the last symphonies, the Violin Concerto, the Wedding March - rolled from his pen before his health began to decline in 1846. Compounded by the death of his beloved sister, Mendelssohn's depression and decline proceeded until the next year, when he died at the tender age of 38.
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It was during this decade spent in Leipzig that Mendelssohn developed a friendship with Robert Schumann, and he conducted the premiere performances of Schumann's first two symphonies and his piano concerto as well. Schumann owed much of his fame as a composer to Mendelssohn's support of his works during their collaborative years in Leipzig. Clara Schumann gave 21 performances with Mendelssohn as conductor, and in March 1840, Liszt gave three special concerts in the Gewandhaus. Other famous performers engaged by Mendelssohn during his tenure in Leipzig included Thalberg, Moscheles, and Anton Rubinstein.
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The Symphony No. 1 in C minor for full-scale orchestra was written in 1824, when Mendelssohn was aged 15. This work is experimental, showing the influence of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. Mendelssohn conducted this symphony on his first visit to London in 1829 with the orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society. For the third movement he substituted an orchestration of the Scherzo from his Octet. In this form the piece was an outstanding success and laid the foundations of his British reputation.
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Mendelssohn began taking piano lessons from his mother when he was six, and at seven was tutored by Marie Bigot in Paris. From 1817 he studied composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin. He probably made his first public concert appearance at the age of nine, when he participated in a chamber music concert. He was ... a prolific composer as a child, writing his first published work, a piano quartet, by the time he was thirteen. Goethe met the young Mendelssohn and took quite a shine to him, saying to him "When I am sad, come and cheer me with your playing."
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From 1826 to 1829, Mendelssohn studied at Berlin University. It was then he decided on music as his chosen profession. During the years that followed, Mendelssohn traveled and performed all over Europe, discovering England, Scotland, Italy and France. In 1832, Mendelssohn conducted his magnificent Hebrides Overture, Op. 26, as well as other important works in London, a city where he greatly enjoyed performing. Mendelssohn visited Great Britain ten times during his short lifetime, and he was on close terms with Queen Victoria, who viewed him, not only as a personal friend, but ... as one of her favorite composers. Mendelssohn's reputation in England was truly great, and the composer developed a sincere affection for the British public, which was reciprocated by his audiences in London.
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Mendelssohn modeled his philosophy after that of Christian Wolff (a prominent philosopher of the Enlightenment) and Gottfried Leibnitz (a European rationalist). He wrote some general philosophical works, including many dealing with the theory of art, but his most well known writings deal with Judaism. Mendelssohn conceived of God as a perfect Being and had faith in God's wisdom, righteousness, mercy and goodness. He argued that, "the world results from a creative act through which the divine will seeks to realize the highest good." He accepted the existence of miracles and revelation as long as belief in God did not depend on them. He ... believed that revelation could not contradict reason. Like the deists, he claimed that reason could discover the reality of God, divine providence and immortality of the soul.
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