Essential Mendelssohn
It is almost impossible to find a work by Mendelssohn that isn’t a pleasure to listen to. So we didn’t bother trying. Instead, here is a selection of gems from the composer who wedded poetry and poise like no other musician of the 19th century.
Read more…Mendelssohn was nothing if not eclectic: a Jewish Lutheran from Germany who was in love with Italy, England and Scotland and adored Shakespeare as much as Schiller. His frequent travels inspired him to write music describing fierce oceans and serene landscapes. He sucked up nature, literature, painting and poetry. His music is impulsively gregarious despite its finesse. Sure, Mendelssohn had an easy life. But he never took the easy route when writing – even when, as in his divine Songs Without Words, it seems as though the music must have come to him as if in a dream.