Status Updates From Mendelssohn: A Life in Music

"...may you taste only the sweets and none of the bitterness of authorship... may the public pelt you with roses, and never with sand; and may the printer's ink never draw black lines upon your soul"
- Felix to Fanny

Finally, after he had discouraged her from publishing throughout their entire lives, Fanny went and did it anyway and asking one last time for his blessing, Felix comes around.

[Felix] has a glorious dark eye, and Byron's expression of a 'dome of thought' could never be more appropriately applied than to his lofty and intellectual forehead...
...Dark, lustrous, unfathomable eyes... They were black, but without the usual opaqueness of black eyes, shining, not with a surface light, but with a pure, serene, planetary flame.
- J.Bayard Taylor

[Wagner played] the seductive Venusberg theme from Tannhauser, on which he was then at work. When Felix asked, "What is that?" Wagner replied, "Do you think I am going to reveal it to you?" whereupon Felix at once reproduced it himself at the piano.

I'm thankful that, while this is very much a Felix bio, the author gives Fanny a notable amount of page time as well, following her progress as a composer and illuminating derivatives between her and her brother's works where applicable.
Her 'Das Jahr' is well worth your time. A cycle of piano character pieces on the 12 months. Some beauties in there, for sure!

Proud to announce that Felix was my Top Artist on Spotify this year with 15217 minutes listened! :D
I'm not sure that tops my Beethoven listening from several years ago but it still puts me in the top 0.001% of global fans.... Let's be honest, no one on Earth listened to more Mendelssohn than me this year! :D

At one musical matinée given by Felix, Liszt appeared in Hungarian uniform and played a series of pyrotechnical variations on a Hungarian folk melody. Then, insisting his host reciprocate, Liszt watched incredulously as Felix replicated the Hungarian melody, executed one variation after another, and managed to imitate Liszt's "movements and raptures" without offending him.

"Hold my beer."
- Mendelssohn

Schumann and Mendelssohn were largely responsible for the 19th-century Schubert revival. Schumann discovered several unpublished symphonies and Felix took the decision, and the time, to resuscitate the "Great" symphony (no.9) and "effectively transformed Schubert from a respected "ballad" composer to a symphonist of stature".

On Fanny's birthday Felix praised her new compositions and... later alluded to some in his own piano miniatures but could not bring himself to support her entering the lists as a "professional" composer. This issue would haunt the final ten years of Fanny's life.

Fanny: "It's crucial to have your consent, for without it I might not undertake anything of the kind."

The first 6 'Lieder ohne Worte' (Op.19b) were released in Bonn in late 1833, the official debut of the new term, and indeed new genre, which would become synonomous with Mendelssohnism.

Disappointed with Felix's reaction to the music of Hector Berlioz. I knew this already from Berlioz's memoirs but, having now read a bit about Felix, his dislike/dismissal of B's work seem at odds with his generally open-minded and sponge-like nature regarding all types of music.
Though he enjoyed international success, I don't think the musical world was fully ready for some of Berlioz's more radical innovations...

Felix conducts two "revival" performances of Bach's 'St.Matthew Passion' in March of 1829. The first time in 100 years the masterpiece had been presented publicly, it would serve as the prime mover in the 19th Century rediscovery of Bach. Felix was just 20 years old.

Felix:
"And to think that it has to be an actor [Eduard Devrient] and a young jew who return to the people the greatest Christian music!"

Fanny played a special role in Felix's [Opus 8 - the 12 Gesange], to which Marx alluded [certain pieces] portrayed a "sweet, inward, most pure" form of love, so that one was inclined to label the lied weiblich ("feminine"), "if there were female composers, and if ladies could absorb such profound music." As Marx knew, Fanny had composed [several]... cont.

The Octet in Eb Major, Op.20. A piece that, at 16 yrs old, catapulted Felix into the Western Canon of Great composers. "No work of Mozart from a comparable age matches the consummate skill of the Octet." (Not that it's a competition!)
Just incase you couldn't tell, we've got a prodigy of the highest order on our hands, people, and this piece is brilliant from beginning to end. Get it in your ear holes now!

During an 1825 trip to Paris, Felix was not impressed with the music scene. A 14-yr-old Liszt's glittery improvisations were "wretched", inflated with vapid scales; Franzi possessed many fingers but meager mental faculties. Camille Pleyel, who took unconscionable liberties with Mozart and "Great Maestro Windbag" (Rossini) fare no better. Habeneck's conducting, unconvincing. The Opera, feeble and monochromatic...

1824. Felix is given a revelatory gift in a copy of the autographed score of Bach's 'St.Matthew's Passion'. While this is to have a strong influence on him, many of the notable works of this period actually betray principle influences not of J.S and C.P.E. Bach, Haydn and Mozart, but Beethoven and Weber. The increased interest in Beethoven largely a result of his friendship with A.B.Marx, music theorist and critic.

Whispers abound, young Felix is a musical miracle! Or as Goethe would have you believe, an improved version of Mozart!
His first Opus published in 1823, the 'Piano Quartet in C minor Op.1', in keeping with this reputation, is highly derivative of il maestrino's own Piano Sonata in C minor (K.457) in many ways while seeking its own identity with moments of originality, particularly in the Scherzo.

Yet another biography in which I read of the huge influence of C.P.E.Bach on the composer. It just seems to come up time and time again. I feel like he doesn't get nearly enough airtime for his role as a bridge between the Baroque and Classical eras. Sometimes it feels like we had J.S.Bach and, next minute, we had Haydn but let's give this guy his due; Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, he influenced them all!