Biography:If there was any composer in the early 19th century whose reputation would strike fear into the heart of one who would falteringly aspire to the same profession, then that composer must surely have been Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Born in 1809 to a wealthy family of philosophers and bankers, Felix and his sister Fanny were child prodigies in the Mozartian mould. Moses Mendelssohn, Felix's grandfather, was a philosopher and man of letters, and a testament to his liberalism is that he had children who went on to take between them the three different European faiths, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish. Felix himself was a Protestant as was his father, Abraham. Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy had married Lea Itzig, and it was the Itzig family's banking firm which had been in charge of Frederick the Great's funds in previous decades.
The Mozart-Mendelssohn comparisons are many. The early years were in a similar vein to those of the young Mozart. In 1817, at the age of eight, Felix was transposing at sight at the keyboard. That year Felix and Fanny (Fanny was 12) were brought on tour, and visited Paris and Berlin, impressing the impressionable with their virtuosity (Fanny) and ingenuity (Felix). Four years later, during two musical soirées in Goethe's house, on November 8th and 11th, 1821, the 12-year-old Felix was given various tasks to perform involving his musical recall and his extemporisation skills, at the end of which he was pronounced "an improved version of the young Mozart" by one who had heard the young Mozart perform similar tricks decades earlier.
While Fanny could perform on the same level as her younger brother, the tragedy is that she was actively discouraged by her father from composing anything of greater weight than simple song settings. We are told how, while the 12-year-old Felix was crafting fugues and beginning his third piano sonata in Paris, Abraham wrote from there to Fanny saying: " . . . Music will perhaps become his profession, while for you it can and must only be an ornament . . . Remain true to these sentiments and to this line of conduct; they are feminine, and only what is truly feminine is an ornament to your sex.".
Thus Fanny's compositional aspirations were relegated to the purely domestic pursuits of songs and piano pieces, while Felix's continued to blossom and bear fruit. He was also a talented artist and draughtsman, and during his many journeys around Europe as a child he often whiled away the time sketching the landscapes the touring party passed through (when the 12-year-old wasn't writing double fugues in invertable counterpoint, that is!).
The comments which the 16-year-old Felix Mendelssohn made on his contemporaries in Paris make interesting reading, given the lack of cross- pollination between French/Italian and German musical styles at the time. Rossini was "Great Maestro Windbag", the young Liszt (14 at the time) had "many fingers, but little head" (a view he was to change in maturity during the 1830s), and the now forgotten Neukomm ("newcomer") he renamed Altkomm ("old-timer"). There is a later reference by Mendelssohn to Louis Spohr from 1829; after hearing some choral pieces which didn't please him, Mendelssohn commented: "They hang Jews for poisoning fountains, but music is just as valuable as a fountain, I hope, and therefore Spohr will have to die!"
Mendelssohn was known also as a conductor. In 1835, he became the director of the orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Initially he was invited to be a professor at the university, but he turned it down because he regarded himself as a practical musician who never left a colloquium about music without "feeling more unmusical". A mark of his consideration to others is that he only agreed to accept the appointment after he had ascertained that it wouldn't jeopardise the position of the existing choral director, Augest Pohlenz.
It was while he was director of this orchestra that Mendelssohn established the now normal procedure of directing all rehearsals and concerts from the front and with a baton. Additionally, the practice of attempting to recreate "authentic" performances of works from the past can be traced to his own performances of the works of Handel, particularly Israel in Egypt, without the added wind parts and with organ reinstated (during the late 18th century the organ had been replaced by wind parts in arrangements of Handel's music by many composers and arrangers including Mozart).
It was also while he was at the Gewandhaus that the composer's friendship with Liszt became very strong, Mendelssohn conducting many of Liszt's works, and the two performed together both in public and also at private soirées. On one occasion, Mendelssohn, to Liszt's incredulity, replicated a Hungarian melody complete with pyrotechnical variations which Liszt had performed a moment earlier (in Hungarian costume), and even managed to caricature Liszt's movements and keyboard mannerisms without offending him.
R. Larry Todd, the author of this magnificent biography, has devoted his life to the pursuit of this genius, and the detail and depth of his knowledge shows in every page. But this book is so good that I have to burst the bubble a little bit.
For example, how much do we need detail such as the following from page 348: "In Mainz, where more than a thousand years before Boniface had consolidated the conversion of the Germanic tribes to Christianity, Felix and Cécile spent their wedding night at the Rheinischer Hof, an elegant hotel with a balcony overlooking the Rhine."
I'd love to know what is the relevance of Boniface's Christian conversion of the Germanic tribes to Mendelssohn's wedding night activities (or am I missing something?).
And while there are many analyses of Mendelssohn's works, stylistically they can become a little insipid at times. Consider the following in relation to the overture Das erste Walpurgisnacht: ". . . Now the blustery 3/4 of winter broadens to 4/4, and soft wind tremolos propel a gently falling figure in the strings and flutes . . ." Now, we are told in the publisher's note on the flyleaf that Prof Todd "rejects the view of the composer as a craftsman of felicitous but sentimental, saccharine works" but I would have thought this kind of writing does little to help his argument!
Another stylistic quibble is the constant reference to the composer as "Felix" instead of "Mendelssohn". Presumably if one has lived with one's subject for as long as Prof Todd, one earns the right to be on first name terms, but it still grates a little.
But these are little things. This work is an invaluable addition to the canon about Mendelssohn's achievements in his short life (he died in 1847, from a stroke, having written a huge amount for someone who was not yet 40), and Prof Todd has combined scholarship in music with an understanding of the social and historical period in which Mendelssohn lived to create an account which is both riveting and informative.
Fergus Johnston is a composer and a part-time lecturer in composition in the Music and Media Technology course of the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering in TCD. His music will be featured in an RTÉ/NSOI Horizons concert at lunchtime on March 30th.
Mendelssohn: A Life in Music By R. Larry Todd Oxford, 683pp. £25