Felix Mendelssohn

Born in Hamburg in 1809 and educated in the intellectual Berlin of the early 19th century, Felix Mendelssohn quickly established himself as a composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early German Romantic period. His writing sits at the crossroads of the classicism inherited from Mozart and Beethoven and a more restrained Romanticism, attentive to the clarity of form, counterpoint and orchestral color. Mendelssohn composed in nearly all genres, from chamber music to symphonies, from solo piano to oratorios. Among his best-known works are the String Octet in E-flat major (1825), the overture and incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the famous Bridal March, his Symphonies No. 3 'Scottish' and No. 4 'Italian,' the overture The Hebrides, Violin Concerto in E minor Op. 64 (1844), as well as the Songs without Words. Mendelssohn also played a central role in the musical life of his time by conducting in 1829 a landmark revival of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, then taking the helm at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and founding the city's conservatory in 1843. Very much present on German and British stages, he died in Leipzig in 1847, at the age of 38, leaving behind a body of work that remains a landmark of European Romanticism.