Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
The German composer Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg on February 3rd, 1809. He was the grandson of the great Jewish scholar and philosopher Moses Mendelssohn but was brought up as a Lutheran Christian.
His greatest contributions to sacred music were twofold.
Firstly, he arranged and conducted, in Berlin in 1829, the first performance of J .S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion since the composer's death in 1750, leading to a revival of interest in the music of the great baroque master.
Secondly, he composed a considerable amount of church and sacred music, in particular for the Lutheran and Anglican churches, the most important being his trilogy of biblical oratorios, Paulus (1836), Elijah (first performed in English in Birmingham in 1846) and Christus, left unfinished at the time of his death in Leipzig in 1847 at the age of 38.
Mendelssohn was a Romantic composer who incorporated elements of classical and baroque style in his music, pointing back to Bach and Handel, including producing an edition of the latter's biblical oratorio Israel in Egypt.
The opening bars of the Hebrides Overture
A Mendelssohn score
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