Biography (read more)
Felix Mendelssohn was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the early Romantic period, born in Hamburg and raised in Berlin, who later worked extensively in Leipzig and made ten visits to Britain; he served as director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1835. His prolific output includes symphonies (among them the Italian and Scottish), concertos, chamber music such as the String Octet, piano and organ works, the incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and oratorios including St. Paul and Elijah. He died in Leipzig in 1847, aged 38, after a series of strokes brought on by exhaustion and grief over the death of his sister Fanny.
Mendelssohn helped bridge the Classical and Romantic styles while maintaining essentially conservative musical tastes, and he played a decisive role in the Bach revival through his 1829 performance of the St Matthew Passion, as well as founding the Leipzig Conservatory. Though his reputation suffered later denigration tied to antisemitism and shifting critical fashions, he is today regarded as among the most popular and frequently performed composers of the Romantic era.
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