Jonathan O'Neill’s Reviews > Mendelssohn: A Life in Music > Status Update

"...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

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 Schumann discovered several unpublished symphonies and Felix took the decision, and the time, to resuscitate the "Great" symphony (no.9) and "effectively transformed Schubert from a respected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!"