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Mendelssohn
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Moses Mendelssohn was the first Jew to bring secular culture to those living an Orthodox Jewish life. He valued reason and felt that anyone could arrive logically at religious truths. He argued that what makes Judaism unique is its divine revelation of a code of law. He wrote many philosophical treatises and is considered the father of the Jewish Enlightenment.
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[A]nother dimension to Mendelssohn's glittering career was his far-reaching influence as an organiser and administrator. As a result of his tireless efforts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Leipzig Conservatory, which he founded in 1843, he raised performance standards to new heights and created many opportunities for contemporary composers and performers. He made a major contribution to the revival of interest in Bach's music, which at that time was virtually unknown to the general public. In 1829, when he was still only twenty, he conducted the first public performance of the St. Matthew Passion since Bach's death, an event which, probably more than any other, provided the impetus for the 19th century rediscovery of Bach. He was ... a great admirer of the music of Handel and Haydn, whose oratorios he conducted in Leipzig. Mendelssohn visited England many times, where he was received with adulation, feted by the press, and became a great favourite of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
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Mendelssohn had two grand pianos in his rooms at the Heinke’s, and he was constantly practising. Moreover, he practised on a dumb keyboard while sitting up in bed. His public appearances were greeted with wild enthusiasm. The best account of them is in his own letters, for he was a charming letter-writer. "Old John Cramer led me to the piano like a young lady," he says, "and I was received with immense applause." At a morning concert he played Weber’s Concertstück, when he was dressed in "very long white trousers, brown silk waistcoat, black necktie, and blue dress coat." Of another concert he tells, with consummate amusement, how a lady accidentally sat on a kettledrum.
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Following private correspondence with Jacobi on the issue and an extended period when Jacobi (in personal straits at the time) did not respond to his objections, Mendelssohn attempted to set the record straight about Lessing's Spinozism in Morning Hours. Learning of Mendelssohn's plans incensed Jacobi who expected to be consulted first and who accordingly responded by publishing, without Mendelssohn's consent, their correspondence — On the Teaching of Spinoza in Letters to Mr. Moses Mendelssohn — a month before the publication of Morning Hours. Distressed on personal as well as intellectual levels by the controversy over his departed friend's pantheism, Mendelssohn countered with a hastily composed piece, To the Friends of Lessing: an Appendix to Mr. Jacobi's Correspondence on the Teaching of Spinoza. According to legend, so anxious was Mendelssohn to get the manuscript to the publisher that, forgetting his overcoat on a bitterly cold New Year's eve, he delivered the manuscript on foot to the publisher. That night he came down with a cold from which he died four days later, prompting his friends to charge Jacobi with responsibility for Mendelssohn's death.
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Mendelssohn toured Europe visiting a number of countries where he sketched musical fragments later to be turned into concert works, which is why a number of his works bear titles suggesting these countries. He visited Scotland, writing the seeds for his Scottish Symphony and the Fingal's Cave overture (following a trip to visit the Isle of Staffa, near Mull) and meeting Sir Walter Scott. He sketched his Italian Symphony while visiting Rome and Naples, and note that three of his "Songs Without Words" are Venetian Boat Songs. He was famous particularly in his native Germany and in England, a country he visited several times becoming a favourite of Queen Victoria. He first performed his oratorio Elijah in 1846 at the Birmingham Festival. In his mature years he was to hold a number of posts in Dusseldorf, Berlin and Leipzig where he worked closely with Robert Schumann.
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In 1827 Mendelssohn's only opera, Die Hochzeit des Camacho (The Marriage of Camacho), based on Cervantes' Don Quixote, was presented in Berlin. It was not successful, owing in part to the machinations of Gasparo Spontini, who had earlier tried to prevent its production. More successful was the Octet for Strings, one of Mendelssohn's freshest and most original works. The same year he became acquainted with Anton Thibaut, a professor of law and a gifted amateur writer on music who was concerned with revitalizing interest in old church music. Through him, Mendelssohn came to know the masterpieces of Renaissance and early baroque choral music. For some years he ... attended the University of Berlin but kept on with his flow of compositions.
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