Bio of Composer Felix Mendelssohn

According to Wikipedia sources: Mendelssohn was born on February 3, 1809 in Hamburg, Germany. He was the grandson of the prominent philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. As was the custom amongst many Jews in those days: Mendelssohn's father decided to adopt the Christian faith in 1816 when Felix was just 7 years of age.

Felix Mendelssohn was the son of a very well to do banker by the name of Abraham Mendelssohn, and his wife Lea Salomon; Abraham eventually modified his last name to Mendelssohn-Bartholdy right around the time he adopted the Christian faith.

Felix grew up surrounded by intellectuals from all walks of life: music, literature, painting, philosophy, and science (Mendelssohn himself was very talented, intelligent, and extremely efficient in everything, but music was the area in which he excelled at the most).

Mendelssohn's bio is larger than life, and stranger than fiction; Mendelssohn was not only writing symphonies when he was only 11 years old, but he was conducting them as well. Abraham (his father) had important guests come over for social gatherings on the weekends (they were residing in Berlin at the time); Abraham financed an orchestra for his very young talented son to conduct in their home mainly for these special occasions, as well as to show off his son's musical talent. To some degree, Abraham did to Felix what Leopold (Mozart's father) did to Mozart. As a result of living a fast life, Mendelssohn was very accomplished in orchestration by the time he was only 14 years old. At 14, Mendelssohn had already written many string symphonies (since his home orchestra was mostly composed of string players), concertos, and string quartets; Mendelssohn wrote his first full orchestral symphony (No. 1) when he was just 15 years old.

Mendelssohn's older sister Fanny was the love of his life. She was also a very gifted pianist and composer in a time when women got little if any recognition at all. Rumors (although it has never been confirmed) say that upon hearing of her death early in 1847, his condition declined very rapidly leading up to his early death at the age of 38. Other sources say: Mendelssohn was extremely overworked and in great demand as a conductor, pianist, and composer; Mendelssohn was putting 20 hour days at work as the principal conductor of the famous Gewandhaus orchestra, a position which he took in 1835, and which he held until the year of his death in 1847. Mendelssohn's early death may have been the result of him being overworked and in very poor health.

A the age of 16, Mendelssohn wrote his famous Octet for strings. Many say this is one of the greatest compositions ever written by a 16 year old boy. It shows a great deal of imagination and great knowledge of musical form.

At 17, Mendelssohn wrote what many musical authorities consider to be one of the greatest (if not the greatest) musical accomplishments by a 17 year old: "The Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream." Ironically enough, Mendelssohn didn't write the incidental music until almost 15 years after the overture. This work shows great mastery of orchestration, as well as great mastery of musical form. In a time when composers would seldom have sections of the orchestra play alone for a long period of time; Mendelssohn does a great job in the beginning of the overture with just the string section playing (he was trying to mimic the fairy effect which Shakespeare himself wanted to convey in his play).

Although during the 19th century Mendelssohn was considered to be one of the giants of the Romantic Period, in the 20th century, his music faded away. Today, 2009, which marks the 200th anniversary of his birth, Mendelssohn got the last laugh. He is not only revered as one of the giants of music, but his music itself is considered to have been ahead of its day. His way of combining counterpoint, classical, and romantic idiom/tendencies, have secured him a place amongst the giants of music.