Mendelssohn and His World
Mendelssohn and His World

Author: R. Larry Todd

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012-01-16

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 1400831628

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During the 1830s and 1840s the remarkably versatile composer-pianist-organist-conductor Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy stood at the forefront of German and English musical life. Bringing together previously unpublished essays by historians and musicologists, reflections on Mendelssohn written by his contemporaries, the composer's own letters, and early critical reviews of his music, this volume explores various facets of Mendelssohn's music, his social and intellectual circles, and his career. The essays in Part I cover the nature of a Jewish identity in Mendelssohn's music (Leon Botstein); his relationship to the Berlin Singakademie (William A. Little); the role of his sister Fanny Hensel, herself a child prodigy and accomplished composer (Nancy Reich); Mendelssohn's compositional craft in the Italian Symphony and selected concert overtures (Claudio Spies); his oratorio Elijah (Martin Staehelin); his incidental music to Sophocles' Antigone (Michael P. Steinberg); his anthem "Why, O Lord, delay forever?" (David Brodbeck); and an unfinished piano sonata (R. Larry Todd). Part II presents little-known memoirs by such contemporaries as J. C. Lobe, A. B. Marx, Julius Schubring, C. E. Horsley, Max Mller, and Betty Pistor. Mendelssohn's letters are represented in Part III by his correspondence with Wilhelm von Boguslawski and Aloys Fuchs, here translated for the first time. Part IV contains late nineteenth-century critical reviews by Heinrich Heine, Franz Brendel, Friedrich Niecks, Otto Jahn, and Hans von Blow.

Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn

Author: R. Larry Todd

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2003-10-23

Total Pages: 748

ISBN-13: 9780195110432

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An extraordinary prodigy of Mozartean abilities, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was a distinguished composer and conductor. Now, in the first major Mendelssohn biography to appear in decades, Todd offers a remarkably fresh account of this musical giant.

The Mendelssohns
The Mendelssohns

Author: John Michael Cooper

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 9780198167235

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Since about 1970 there has been a veritable renaissance in scholarship and performances concerning the works of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Hensel. The essays in this book, presenting the findings of three generations of members of the international community of Mendelssohn/Hensel scholars, constitute a compendium of cutting-edge research relating to these two important representatives of nineteenth-century musical culture.

Rethinking Mendelssohn
Rethinking Mendelssohn

Author: Benedict Taylor Ph.D.

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-04-15

Total Pages: 539

ISBN-13: 0190611790

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As one of the foremost composers, conductors, and pianists of the nineteenth century, Felix Mendelssohn played a fundamental role in the shaping of modern musical tastes through his contributions to the early music revival and the formation of the Austro-German musical canon. His career allows for a remarkable meeting point for critical engagement with a host of crucial issues in the last two centuries of music history, including the relation between musical meaning and social function, programmatic and absolute music, notions of classicism and Romanticism, modernism and historicism. It also serves as a pertinent case-study of the roles political ideology, racism, and musical ignorance may play in creating and perpetuating a composer's posthumous reception. Fittingly, Rethinking Mendelssohn focuses on critical engagement with the composer's music and aesthetics, and on the interpretation of his works in relation to contemporaneous culture. Building on the renaissance in Mendelssohn scholarship of the last two decades, Rethinking Mendelssohn sets a fresh and exciting tone for research on the composer. Opening new ways of understanding Mendelssohn and setting the future direction of Mendelssohn studies, the contributing scholars pay particular attention to Mendelssohn's contested views on the relationship between art and religion, analysis of Mendelssohn's instrumental music in the wake of recent controversies in Formenlehre, and the burgeoning interest in his previously neglected contribution to the German song.

Mendelssohn in Performance
Mendelssohn in Performance

Author: Siegwart Reichwald

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2008-09-25

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0253002613

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Exploring many aspects of Felix Mendelssohn's multi-faceted career as musician and how it intersects with his work as composer, contributors discuss practical issues of music making such as performance space, instruments, tempo markings, dynamics, phrasings, articulations, fingerings, and instrument techniques. They present the conceptual and ideological underpinnings of Mendelssohn's approach to performance, interpretation, and composing through the contextualization of specific performance events and through the theoretic actualization of performances of specific works. Contributors rely on manuscripts, marked or edited scores, and performance parts to convey a deeper understanding of musical expression in 19th-century Germany. This study of Mendelssohn's work as conductor, pianist, organist, violist, accompanist, music director, and editor of old and new music offers valuable perspectives on 19th-century performance practice issues.

Fanny Hensel
Fanny Hensel

Author: R. Larry Todd

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009-11-25

Total Pages: 455

ISBN-13: 0199884528

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Granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Fanny Hensel (1805-1847) was an extraordinary musician who left well over four hundred compositions, most of which fell into oblivion until their rediscovery late in the twentieth century. In Fanny Hensel: The Other Mendelssohn, R. Larry Todd offers a compelling, authoritative account of Hensel's life and music, and her struggle to emerge as a publicly recognized composer.

Moses Mendelssohn
Moses Mendelssohn

Author: Shmuel Feiner

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2010-11-16

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 0300167520

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From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, an accessible and fascinating biography of Moses Mendelssohn, the seminal Jewish philosopher "A fascinating portrait of an important Enlightenment figure."—Library Journal The “German Socrates,” Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) was the most influential Jewish thinker of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A Berlin celebrity and a major figure in the Enlightenment, revered by Immanuel Kant, Mendelssohn suffered the indignities common to Jews of his time while formulating the philosophical foundations of a modern Judaism suited for a new age. His most influential books included the groundbreaking Jerusalem and a translation of the Bible into German that paved the way for generations of Jews to master the language of the larger culture. Feiner’s book is the first that offers a full, human portrait of this fascinating man—uncommonly modest, acutely aware of his task as an intellectual pioneer, shrewd, traditionally Jewish, yet thoroughly conversant with the world around him—providing a vivid sense of Mendelssohn’s daily life as well as of his philosophical endeavors. Feiner, a leading scholar of Jewish intellectual history, examines Mendelssohn as father and husband, as a friend (Mendelssohn’s long-standing friendship with the German dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was seen as a model for Jews and non-Jews worldwide), as a tireless advocate for his people, and as an equally indefatigable spokesman for the paramount importance of intellectual independence.

Schumann and His World
Schumann and His World

Author: R. Larry Todd

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 1400863864

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We know Robert Schumann in many ways: as a visionary composer, a seasoned journalist, a cultured man of letters, and a genius who, having passed his mantle on to the young Brahms, succumbed to mental illness in 1856. Drawing on recent pathbreaking research, this collection offers new perspectives on this seminal nineteenth-century figure. In Part I, Leon Botstein and Michael P. Steinberg assess Schumann's efforts to place music at the center of German culture, in public and private sectors. Bernhard R. Appel offers a probing source study of one of Schumann's most personal works, the Album für die Jugend, Op. 68, while John Daverio considers the generic identity of Das Paradies und die Peri, and Jon W. Finson reexamines the first version of the Eichendorff Liederkreis. Gerd Nauhaus investigates Schumann's approach to the symphonic finale, and R. Larry Todd considers the intractable issue of quotations and allusions in Schumann's music. Part II presents letters and memoirs, including unpublished correspondence between Clara Schumann and Felix and Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. In Part III, conflicting critical views of Schumann are juxtaposed. Some of these sources are translated into English for the first time. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Korngold and His World
Korngold and His World

Author: Daniel Goldmark

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-08-27

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0691198292

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Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) was the last compositional prodigy to emerge from the Austro-German tradition of Mozart and Mendelssohn. He was lauded in his youth by everyone from Mahler to Puccini and his auspicious career in the early 1900s spanned chamber music, opera, and musical theater. Today, he is best known for his Hollywood film scores, composed between 1935 and 1947.

The Life and Times of Felix Mendelssohn
The Life and Times of Felix Mendelssohn

Author: Susan Zannos

Publisher: Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc.

Published: 2004-03

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13: 1612289169

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Unlike most 19th century composers who had to struggle to make a living, Felix Mendelssohn came from a very wealthy family. He never had to work, but he worked harder to fulfill his family's expectations than many who suffered poverty. He was an extremely gifted musical genius who wrote some of his best works while he was still a teenager. Mendelssohn gained fame as a conductor, and as the organizer of many music festivals in Germany and in England where he was always enthusiastically welcomed. Unlike some composers who only performed their own work, Mendelssohn had a passion for presenting the best music of all periods. He was also very generous in helping younger composers by playing their work. His weakness was being unable to say no to the many requests he received for performances. He was a perfectionist who devoted his energy to presenting the highest possible level of musical perfection. As his fame spread, he had little time left for his own compositions. Mendelssohn died at the age of 38, essentially from exhaustion brought on by overworking.