Lesson 7: Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Although his life was a relatively short one, Felix Mendelssohn is another composer that you may be familiar with without even realizing it. His 'Wedding March' from A Midsummer Night's Dream has accompanied many a bride down the aisle. Mendelssohn was one of the founders of the first music conservatory in Germany, the Leipzig Conservatory.

Born in 1809 in Germany, Mendelssohn gave his first public piano concert at the age of nine. He showed great talent and promise from a very young age, and his musical style was well developed by the time he was a teenager. Although his career was a short one, Mendelssohn served as the musical director for a prestigious orchestra in Germany as well as the Kapellmeister for the King of Prussia. He died at the age of thirty-eight from a series of strokes.

Mendelssohn is somewhat different from most other Romantic composers in that his work is more conservative and traditional. In fact, he tended to be quite wary of the innovations that other composers showed in their work. Instead, his work is influenced more by past composers, such as Bach and Mozart. What was 'Romantic' in his work was the pictorialism that he incorporated into his work, although this too tended to be more conservative and focused on nature. As noted above, one of his more well-known works is A Midsummer Night's Dream, a concert overture. Concert overtures were concert pieces on literary themes that were written independent of any stage performance. Mendelssohn's work is regarded as some of the first concert overtures written. Other famous works include Hebrides Overture, Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, and the oratorio Elijah.