Biography
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was born in Hamburg on 3 February 1809, the son of the banker Abraham Mendelssohn and Lea Salomon; his older sister Fanny, later Fanny Hensel, was also a composer. From 1819 he studied composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter and performed in public as a pianist while still a child. After a period as music director in Düsseldorf (1833–1835), he led the Gewandhaus concerts in Leipzig from 1835, where he co-founded the Conservatory in 1843, while also serving for a time as General Music Director in Berlin. He was also a driving force behind the rediscovery of Johann Sebastian Bach, conducting Bach's St Matthew Passion in Leipzig's Thomaskirche in 1841. In 1837 he married Cécile Jeanrenaud, with whom he had five children. Mendelssohn died in Leipzig on 4 November 1847, after several strokes, at the age of 38.
On Stagelog
Loading stats...