Word: mendelssohn
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...play a certain fugue of Bach's. Unable to recall it all, Felix improvised as he went along, weaving contrapuntal lines into a heavily brocaded baroque fabric that was good enough, at least, to convince Goethe. That was one of the few instances, however, when Mendelssohn's memory failed him. Shortly after Beethoven's Ninth Symphony came out, Mendelssohn, then 15, could play it all on the piano without a book...
Felix made the grand tour. Starting out in 1829, he traveled for three years. His greatest successes came in London, for the English liked his music as well as his charm. Queen Victoria and her consort spent many a private evening with him, with Mendelssohn playing Albert's new pipe organ and the prince literally pulling out all the stops...
...Mendelssohn did not have to work, but his family believed in industry. Declining a permanent chair at the university in Berlin, Felix in 1835 took a paying post as music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Dictatorial, high-strung and charismatic, Mendelssohn demanded absolute obedience from his players and in the process raised the level of orchestral playing in Leipzig, Germany, and throughout Europe to new highs. He also changed the entire look of German symphonic life by using Mozart and Beethoven as the backbone of the repertory (instead of local celebrities like Anton Eberl and Karl Reissiger). Haydn...
Real Love. Mendelssohn was one of those annoying people who seem to find time for everything. The 7,000 letters he wrote in his brief lifetime are proof enough of that. While he was settling in comfortably at Leipzig, he also began to branch out in many musical directions. Guest-conducting engagements took him all over Europe. In 1842 he founded the Leipzig Conservatory. He founded festivals. He played, he taught, he administered, he composed. He also devoted much time to the charming of ladies, in ways that apparently did not develop into bona fide affairs. The real love...
There are those who regard Mendelssohn's music as precious and superficial. It is true that Mendelssohn could not, like Schubert, say "My music is the product of my genius and my misery." He knew no misery, neglect or disappointment, neither the gloom of Beethoven nor the melancholy of Chopin. The Reformation Symphony, for example, is religiosity at its most cloying, and Elijah, tender as its pastoral moments are, simply does not convey the full might of its subject. What Mendelssohn did know about was order, proportion, logic and joy. He was a better orchestrator than either Schumann...