About
Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg in 1809 into one of the wealthiest and most cultured families in Germany — grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn — and died in Leipzig in 1847 at thirty-eight years old. A child prodigy who composed his String Octet at sixteen and the Midsummer Night's Dream Overture at seventeen, he went on to become the most influential musical figure in mid-nineteenth century Germany: conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, founder of the Leipzig Conservatory, reviver of Bach's Matthew Passion, and composer of an enormous body of work across every genre. His death from a series of strokes shocked Europe as much as Mozart's had.
Compositional Style
Mendelssohn's compositional voice is the most immediately accessible of all the major Romantics — elegant, clear, formally balanced, harmonically refined rather than adventurous. This clarity has sometimes been held against him by critics who prize intensity and darkness over lightness and craft, but it represents a genuine aesthetic achievement: the ability to write music that is never banal but always lucid, never heavy but always substantial.
His melodic gift is exceptional. His songs without words — the piano miniatures that he invented as a genre — demonstrate an ability to generate flowing, singable melodic lines over transparent harmonic progressions that made them beloved by amateur pianists across Europe. His larger works — the violin concerto, the piano concertos, the oratorios — are equally melodically fertile.
His relationship to Classical form is conservative by Romantic standards. He uses sonata form, rondo, and variation with genuine structural clarity, building climaxes through intensification of existing material rather than dramatic disruption. This conservatism reflects a considered aesthetic position, influenced by his study of Bach and Handel, that polyphonic clarity and formal proportion are primary musical virtues.
His most individual compositional achievement is his "fairy music" — the scherzo style first heard in the Midsummer Night's Dream Overture and recurring in the Octet and string quartets. These passages combine rapid, light, staccato articulation with major-key harmony and a rhythmic fleet-footedness that creates a supernatural lightness unlike anything in the repertoire before or since. The Scherzo from the Midsummer Night's Dream and the equivalent passage in the Octet are purely Mendelssohnian inventions that no other composer has successfully imitated.
Orchestration
Mendelssohn is among the finest orchestrators in the Romantic repertoire — a fact sometimes overlooked because his textures are clear rather than spectacular. He learned the orchestra thoroughly, conducted it regularly, and wrote for it with a command of balance and idiomatic instrumental writing that rivals Beethoven and anticipates Brahms.
His string writing is particularly fine. The Violin Concerto in E minor is the model of how a concerto should balance soloist and orchestra: the solo violin is always audible against the accompaniment, the orchestra always present without overwhelming. His string quartets and the String Octet are orchestral in scale while remaining true to chamber conventions.
His woodwind writing is among the best in the first half of the nineteenth century. He understood the individual characters of oboe, clarinet, and bassoon with the instinct of a miniaturist, giving each its own identity within the texture. The oboe solo in the slow movement of the Violin Concerto, the clarinet writing in the Octet, the flute in the Midsummer Night's Dream — these are all beautifully judged for the specific capabilities and character of each instrument.
The Midsummer Night's Dream incidental music — particularly the overture and scherzo — demonstrates his orchestrational mastery at its most characteristic. The fairy scherzo's staccato strings and punctuating woodwinds create a texture of remarkable lightness and agility; the bridal march's brass and winds achieve festive majesty without heaviness. The Wedding March is probably the most successful occasional piece in the orchestral repertoire.
His two oratorios, Elijah and St. Paul, show his command of the Baroque choral tradition — inherited from his study of Bach — combined with Romantic orchestral warmth. The thunderstorm in Elijah and the dramatic recitative passages demonstrate an orchestral imagination beyond the merely polished.
Key Works
- A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 61 (1842)
Incidental music for Shakespeare's play, including the Wedding March; the Overture, written at seventeen, is already a masterpiece.
- Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844)
The most played violin concerto in the repertoire; its three movements are joined without pause and its balance of lyricism and brilliance is near-perfect.
- String Octet in E♭ major, Op. 20 (1825)
Written at sixteen; the scherzo anticipates a style of supernatural lightness he would make his own.
- Elijah, Op. 70 (1846)
His finest oratorio; the dramatic episodes — the drought, the fire, the still small voice — are orchestrated with vivid imagination.
- Symphony No. 4 in A major ("Italian"), Op. 90 (1833)
The most popular of his five symphonies; the finale's saltarello is pure orchestral exhilaration.
- Songs Without Words (complete) (1830)
Forty-eight piano miniatures across eight books that defined the character piece for mid-Victorian musical culture.
Influence
Mendelssohn's influence as a conductor and institution-builder was as significant as his compositional legacy. His revival of Bach's Matthew Passion in 1829 initiated the Bach revival that continues to this day. His Gewandhaus concerts set the standard for professional orchestral performance. His establishment of the Leipzig Conservatory created the model for music education in Germany and beyond.
Further reading
Study Mendelssohn's methods inside Gradus — annotated scores, listening exercises, and composition challenges built on the same techniques.
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