Talk:Felix Mendelssohn/Archive 2

London cab
I've just read that he left the only available copy of "Midsummer Night's Dream" in a London cab and had to rewrite the entire score from memory. The ref doesn't say whether it was the Overture, the later incidental music, or both. Any truth in this? -- JackofOz (talk) 07:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This is new one on me. It can't be the Overture that's referred to, which he wrote in childhood (almost) in Berlin before he ever visited London. The rest was written much later and performed on the King of Prussia's birthday, in 1843, in Potsdam. So I would say the story is midsummer moonshine.--Smerus (talk) 09:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't find any online verification of it either. This was a newspaper article - in the travel section, a piece about London sights - so I guess the writer got his facts confused.  But I wonder what the real story on which this obviously false fact was based was.  --  JackofOz (talk) 09:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Is it a mangled version of the (true) story of Thomas Carlyle and the first part of his book on the French Revolution (burnt by John Stuart Mill's parlourmaid by mistake and recreated from scratch?)--Smerus (talk) 11:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Could be. Or Lawrence of Arabia leaving The Seven Pillars of Wisdom in a railway locker room.  Mind you, apart from all these incidents occurring in England, what connection Carlyle or Lawrence had with Mendelssohn escapes me.  If we don't already have a List of musical and literary manuscripts that were destroyed or lost and had to be recreated from scratch from memory by their author, we should have.  --  JackofOz (talk) 13:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * When Sir Arthur Sullivan arrived in New York in 1879, intending to complete The Pirates of Penzance in time for its premiere, he found he had left all his sketches for Act I behind, and had to reconstruct them from memory. --ColinFine (talk) 19:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I've just had a re-think. The claim was "he left the only available copy" in the cab. That might mean that, although many copies of the work existed (presumably in Germany), he'd only brought a single copy with him to England, and nobody else in England had a copy, so for some English performance to get off the ground he had to write it out from memory. Mind you, that would have involved a team of copyists working on all the different parts - or maybe he did it all himself. Who knows. It's probably still apocryphal. -- JackofOz (talk) 05:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This still doesn't add up. I've looked in all the major biographies ~(Todd, Werner, Mercer-Taylor) and can't find this incident mentioned. I can't even find any record that Mendelssohn conducted the incidental music in England (The Overture would have been available in published score)- although the music must have been known fairly early on for the Wedding March to gain its popularity.. I suggest you contact the newspaper and ask for the source to clear this up!!--Smerus (talk) 06:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Without expressing an opinion on this story, it jibes with stories of Mendelssohn's remarkable memory for his own compositions. The composer Julius Schubring tells how he visited Mendelssohn, saw him composing, and turned to leave, but Mendelssohn said, "I am merely copying out."  In fact, wrote Schubring, he was writing out the Grand Overture in C Major. As Mendelssohn and Schubring chatted, the writing never stopped.  "... The whole composition, to the last note, had been so thought over and worked out in his mind that he beheld it there as though it had been actually lying before him." (from Lebrecht, Musical Anecdotes).  --Ravpapa (talk) 12:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Btw, I raised this at Reference desk/Humanities to get a wider audience.  It bore no fruit there either, but it did produce some interesting by-products.  --  JackofOz (talk) 22:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Mendelssohn vs. Mendelssohn Bartholdy
The vast majority of books and recordings use simply the name 'Mendelssohn'. This is a non-contentious matter of observation - no citation is necessary to justify the statement 'generally known as'. I have therefore reinstated the latter in the header.--Smerus (talk) 10:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If your claims are so obviously true, why can't you provide a source for it? If you can't why do restore it? Does it hurt the article to be without this unsources claim? Str1977 (talk) 20:14, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You still haven't provided a shread of source for your claims. Merely asserting your view in a note is not enough, nor are claims about "common sense" - facts can never be asserted by commons sense. And please don't insult me on my talk page. Str1977 (talk) 21:47, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Str1977: Can you explain why you are making an issue of this? I'm puzzled. -- Klein zach  15:35, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Could it be because without a source this claim violates WP:V? It doesn't matter that you consider it trivial - even trivialities must be references - or unimportant - if it is unimportant we may as well do without it. Or are we suddenly dispensing with such policies?
 * The burden of proof is on the side of the one that claims a name different from the subject's accurate name.
 * And on a personal level, I know the man only as Felix Mendel s sohn-Bartholdy. Str1977 (talk) 22:15, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


 * 'Felix Mendelsohn-Bartholdy'? I've never seen that spelling before. Do you pick these things at random to test WP policies and guidelines. Is that it? Or do you actually have a source for Mendelsohn-Bartholdy being correct rather than Mendelssohn (two Ss)? My source - which is Grove - gives (Jakob Ludwig) Felix Mendelssohn(-Bartholdy) (note the parentheses) as the entry with Mendelssohn used in the body text. -- Klein zach  02:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You should read WP:AGF and stop your bad faith remarks.
 * Then you should reflect that you make a claim and hence you have to provide a source that simply "Felix Mendelssohn" is the most common form (merely Mendelssohn will not do as I am sure John F. Kennedy is often called simply Kennedy etc.) Read WP:V.
 * PS. The missing "s" of course was a typo!
 * Str1977 (talk) 09:25, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * PPS. A reference has to provide a RS, not merely reassert the claim. Str1977 (talk) 09:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Amazon is hardly a RS for your claim. At best it sources that FMB is also called FM (and I would accept a "also" wording instead of the unsourced "generally known" wording). BTW, Amazon also has FMB http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=mendelssohn+bartholdy&x=0&y=0 Str1977 (talk) 09:36, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid that Str1977' s increasing tortuous justifications - "I know the man only as Felix Mendel s sohn-Bartholdy" and "Amazon is hardly a RS for your claim" - strike me as definitely WP:OR and not WP:NPOV. I have therefore reverted, again, his edits. I have also however included thew incontrovertibly genuine reference given by Klein  zach  from Grove in the relevant note. I hope therefore that this rather pointless exchange may cease.--Smerus (talk) 12:24, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

For the record
added in the public interest by --Smerus (talk) 18:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The correct spelling is 'Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. (The old Grove is not very precise - in fact it is totally wrong using a hyphenated form.) All recent scientific publication are using 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy', not just the german ones (Refer to R. Larry Todd, John Micheal Cooper, David Brodbeck, Lily E. Hirsch etc.), for this has been the version the composer used by himself all throughout his public life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.74.2.94 (talk) 14:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Grove was published in 1992. It is precise about names. The entries are written by specialists. Can you please sign on to WP so you can take a full and respected part in discussions. Thank you. -- Klein zach  22:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Scottish influence?
The Symphony No. 3 (Mendelssohn) article and this one seem to make conflicting statements regarding the piece's Scottish influence. See the discussion here. -neatnate (talk) 19:20, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I have amended this article to clarify.--Smerus (talk) 09:58, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Was Mendelssohn really Jewish?
Not my question: it's a new editor (User:Matthaeus Tomlinson), who insists on removing the categories involving Jewishness, with the argument that "Mendelssohn is only Jewish by Nazi definition". Mendelssohn is the most famous Jewish composer who ever lived, and the editors of the Jewish Encyclopedia (1905) are probably a reputable source in determining who to include. Sorry, Matthaeus, please see the article Jew. Jewishness is a lot more than just religious belief. I don't stop being a Jew if I stop believing in God. Thank you, Antandrus (talk) 00:33, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Let me add (and repeat from above): Mendelssohn's parents were both (originally) practising Jews. Felix was brought up without religion and was baptised as a Lutheran at the age of 9. He never renounced his Jewish origins however; he maintained a close circle of Jewish friends, he used Yiddish in his family correspondence, he was proud of his grandfather Moses Mendelssohn, and he retained the Jewish surname Mendelssohn despite the advice of his father to drop it. Read every biography of the composer and you will see how his Jewishness affected his life and was recognised by himself. It is of course nonsense, and an insult, to say that only the Nazis considered him Jewish.--Smerus (talk) 09:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Back again logged in with my proper name (Matthaeus is my Vicipaedia Latina name). Jewishness is more than just a religious choice, but that is so of most other religions. One can also be a Catholic by culture or a Muslim by culture without actually practicing the religion or even believing in God. The question is whether Mendelssohn can even be considered culturally Jewish. The evidence is very slender. An important point however is that his father very decidedly rejected Judaism (not just to get on in society, as some have claimed, but because he was convinced by Protestant Christianity) and did not wish himself or his children to be Jewish. We should respect that at least. Now I feel that to call Mendelssohn Jewish is as misleading as it would be to categorise Barack Obama a Muslim - which on similar grounds we could do, as he had a Muslim father and has a Muslim name.Fiddleback (talk) 18:31, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining what you feel. But what you feel has to be put into the context of what almost every authority who has written on Mendelssohn has opined - and I invite you to read for example the biographies by Werner, Mercer-Taylor, Todd and others - that Mendelssohn's Jewish background was acknowledged by, and was a source of pride to, Felix Mendelssohn and that it therefore significantly informed his life. Only the recent book by Donald Sposato has sought to allege that Felix made attempts to deliberately cut himself off from his Jewish roots - and Sposato's analysis is severely flawed. He overlooks, for example, all of Felix Mendelssohn's close associations with fellow Jews (Moscheles, Benedict, Hiller and others), his frequent use of Yiddish in his letters to his family, his interest in the edition of the works of his grandfather Moses. Not least he overlooks that, despite his father's explicit instructions, Felix kept the name Mendelssohn and refused to drop it entirely in favour of Bartholdy, compromising by hyphenating the two names. All this is not 'very slender' evidence, but is substantial. Moreover, although Felix's father Abraham converted (as he made clear) for social convenience rather than belief - and certainly not because he 'was convinced by Protestant Christianity'(I have never seen that claimed even by Sposato!) -, he himself continued to move in a circle of Jews (both converted and non-converted) as his close friends and continued to subscribe to Jewish organisations such as the Gesellschaft der Freunde. Your comparison with Obama is amusing but misleading, since both of Felix's parents came from leading Jewish families in Berlin, and were identified with them; and as Antandrus and others have pointed out here, the issue is not Judaism the religion, but Jewishness, the ethos. Let me give you an example - Abraham, staying in London with the (Jewish) Moscheles family in the 1830s wrote back home that it was the 'Jewish blood' of Charlotte Moscheles as a housekeeper that made him feel at home. I don't want to write a whole essay here, but I hope you get the picture.--Smerus (talk) 20:47, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally (not to labour the point) I challenge anyone to find a single piece of writing (apart from Felix's conversion catechism) in which Felix or his father ever express their feelings on Christianity as a religion, or any reliably reported conversation in which they expressed an opinion on the topic. for whatever reason, they were both in fact remarkably reticent as to what they actually believed.--Smerus (talk) 21:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * All of which reminds me of this anectode: A woman went up to Moritz Moszkowski and asked him to sign her autograph book. In the book, just before where Moszkowski was to sign, Hans von Bülow had written (in French), "Bach, Beethoven, Brahms.  All the others are cretins."  Moszkowski wrote in the book, "Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Moszkowski.  All the others are Christians." --Ravpapa (talk) 06:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I am interested, Smerus, in that you appear to have radically changed your view on this question since 2005 (see 'Mendelssohn not Jewish' above). I do think that any religion also creates a set of defining cultural attitudes, Lutheranism and Catholicism just as much as Judaism which last long after religious practice or belief has been abandoned. Most of my neighbours are culturally Sikhs, but many of them are only culturally so and don't practice their religion. However, and this is important here, if that is replaced by another religion, with the enthusiasm of the convert, that is usually supplanted by a new set of cultural attitudes. I can't generalise from only a few examples, but the couple of Jews known to me who have converted to Christianity no longer think of themselves as Jewish. To do so would be insulting to their former co-religionists. What I am saying is that one can be a secular Jew, and agnostic Jew or even an atheist Jew, but not a Christian Jew. Another thing overlooked in this current debate is that we should view this in the context of Mendelssohn's Prussia where attitudes to Jewry were rather different to those of early 20th century Germany, or even other german states of the time. If there was prejudice, it was often directed against Catholics not Jews. Our present understanding of Jewishness has been much influenced by the holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel. 82.36.94.228 (talk) 16:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Please read again what I have written here and previously (including my 2006 footnote). I hope you may agree that I have clarified my views rather than 'radically changed them' (though of course there would have been no shame if I had done so - one is entitled to change one's mind even on Wikipedia). I agree that 'one can be a secular Jew, and agnostic Jew or even an atheist Jew, but not a Christian Jew' (although Messianic Jews would I suppose disagree). But you can be a convert and still 'Jew-ish'. (I am thinking here, a propos, of Queen victoria's diary entry after meeting Felix Mendelssohn - 'he is small, dark and Jewish-looking') I think you are rather rose-tinted in your opinion of 19th-century Prussian attitudes to Jews, but this is hardly the forum for that discussion. I could not agree more that current conceptions and understanding of Jewishness are vastly over-influenced by the Shoah, and that this constitues a barrier to objective evaluations of the issues involved; and this dislocation is I think reflected in aspects of the present discussion.--Smerus (talk) 18:25, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm...pots and kettles come into mind re Queen Victoria's remarks. The fact that Jews were able to rise to positions of prominence in so many spheres of life and that there was a very high rate of mixed marriages (up to 25% of Jews married non-Jews according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica) in Prussia indicates that Jews were not considered a 'race apart'. If Abraham Mendelssohn converted merely for social convenience, the fact that it was worth doing at all shows that Jewishness cannot have been generally perceived as anything more than a religious allegiance.82.36.94.228 (talk) 23:56, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry to be a bore on this point, but Prussia was the first European state to emancipate its Jewry and make them full citizens too - but, as you said, here is not perhaps the place to discuss it!82.36.94.228 (talk) 00:02, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * - and it was pretty quick to rescind that 'emancipation' once Napoleon was beaten..... 'Jewishness cannot have been generally perceived as anything more than a religious allegiance' - yes, an allegiance to a religion which had been consistently despised and attacked by the indigenous population, traces of which attitude remained whether or not the bearers changed their religion or their name, alas. Do I need to bring up names such as Kant, Fichte (or indeed Richard Wagner)? It was of course perceived - could only be perceived - as a religious allegiance in the first half of the 19th century, until the development of racist ideas allowed the transference of Jew-hatred to secular politics --Smerus (talk) 08:33, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Inigenous population? Jews WERE part of the indigenous population. I think that was questioned far less in the 1830s than it was in the 1930s!82.36.94.228 (talk) 00:19, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

To those interested in pursuing this topic further, let me commend the article on Mendelssohn's Jewishness by David Conway in The Jewish Year Book 2009, published today (ISBN 9780853038900). It would be impossible for me to agree more closely with the views of the author.--Smerus (talk) 22:59, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Schumann
I don't know where to put it, but Schumann is mentioned several times in this article, and in nowhere it is mentioned that after Mendelssohn's death Schumann said "We lost an optional heir to Beethoven". I think it should be mentioned, because this is an expression of appreciation, a counterexample to many other musicians of that time. AdamChapman (talk) 07:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

do you have a citation for this quoate please?--Smerus (talk) 23:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Jenny Lind
I heard a story on radio today (in a program celebrating his 200th birthday - Happy Bicentenary, Felix!) that there's some recent suggestion that he was enamoured of Jenny Lind, and even threatened to kill himself if she didn't accept him as her partner and take him with her to the USA on her tour. This was while he was married with 5 children, and was not too far before he actually died, although there's no suggestion his death was due to anything but natural causes. Do we have any cites for this material? -- JackofOz (talk) 08:32, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

They certainly were strongly attached to each other,but there is no evidence of a physical affaiar, and certaianly not of any suicide threats!! Still as one biographer mentioned, 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'. There needs to be a section about Lind in the article and I will get round to this if noone beats me to it.--Smerus (talk) 23:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, there’s this, this, and this - about the suicide threats, anyway. --  JackofOz (talk) 23:32, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Quote from article: Mercer-Taylor writes that although there is no currently available hard evidence of a physical affair between the two, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
 * I'm uneasy about this. He's virtually saying they had an affair but is just waiting for the hard evidence to prove it.  That seems a rather biased starting point.  The "absence of evidence ..." mantra is used by scientists looking for signs of extra-terrestrial life, where, just because we have no evidence of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, so it's still worth searching for, because the probability there is life is much greater than the probability there isn't.  But you can't use that approach to biography.  If the evidence for an affair exists, then we can say it happened.  If it doesn't, then we can't really speculate about what might have been the case.  We could report the speculations of others, if it's something that many writers have speculated about.  But if only one writer is saying this, and the rest are silent, then I don't think we're justified in reporting it. --  JackofOz (talk) 08:37, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, it seems from the comments made in recent newspaper articles, now referenced in the WP article, that there is an emerging body of opinion that something was going on - just that no-one at present can say exactly what! I think that Clive Brown and Mercer-Taylor, who are amongst the leading scholarly commentators on FMB, constitute a reasonable body of authoritative opinion.--Smerus (talk) 09:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 20:26, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Composer project review
Hmm, I get to the F's in the review list, just a little late for Mendelssohn's birthday. Ah well. This is a decent article; the biography is good. The musicology is a bit weak; more focused stylistic discussion, as well as more popular and critical contemporary commentary would be welcome. My full review is on the comments page; questions and comments should be left here or on my talk page.  Magic ♪piano 15:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The images in that article are very nice, although somewhat monotonous. It looks like the article about 19th century interior. Any examples of his autograph scores, pictures of the members of his family (Fanny?), wife? Mendelssohn was a skilled painter, it would be maybe good to find and add some example of his paintings... I can try to find relevant images. --Vejvančický (talk) 10:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Symphony No. 9

 * "Mendelssohn's Ninth Symphony was first written as a string quartet. It was of such excellence that the composer's friend's urged him to make a symphony of it. This he did and it became Symphony IX for String Orchestra. It is unpublished..." (, back cover)

Unless I overlooked something, the present article mentions only Symphonies No. 1-5. Can anyone provide some info on this symphony? Do No. 6-8 also exist? --Leonard Vertighel (talk) 19:51, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The article does in fact mention that Mendlessohn wrote twelve string symphonies in his youth. This is one of them.--Smerus (talk) 06:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Chipp
User:Bvrly has twice placed extensive commentary on Dr Edmund Thomas Chipp in this article, claiming that he had a major part in FM's British career. This appears to be WP:OR - Chipp is not even referred to in any biographies of FM. I placed the following on User:Bvrly's talk page:

Dear Bvrly, please stop introducing the stuff about Chipp on the Mendelssohn page. He is an extremely minor figure in FM's story (if indeed he figures at all - he is not even mentioned in the major biographies) and it is highly misleading to feature him strongly on the FM page. I suggest you mention all this on Chipp's own page in WP (giving appropriate references of course, if any). Thanks - --Smerus (talk)

--Smerus (talk) 23:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed; he was a minor figure and any connection with Mendelssohn is tenuous, and certainly the way he was portrayed is a violation of WP:UNDUE. By the way, Chipp gets just three mentions in the current New Grove, none in connection with Mendelssohn (one in the article on Alfred Cellier, on in the article on Ely, and one in the article on Timpani).  Thanks, Antandrus  (talk) 00:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I object to the mass deletions of my contributions to this page without prior discussion or any entry on this talk page by Smerus, as he did by just straight out deleting my 5 initial posts and then undoing what it wrote the next day. I consider this vandalism. I take personal objection to the slights and sarcasm in his post below this (if indeed he figures at all?) and the implication that there are no references - which there are, but he has dismissed. I do not claim he was a major part in his career but he had an extremely significant part in it and I have archives before me which document that. I am not being given a chance to establish this however if Smerus deletes things as soon as I write them, and, given the timings, i suspect he has not even tried to verify the information before dismissing it. The fact that Chipp has not featured in the biographies of M. that Smerus has looked at does not mean he did not exist, and the information is irrelevant as he has said. This is an arrogant stance, and I thought that the idea of Wiki was to collect and collate information, including newly discovered historic information, otherwise we might as well just put the existing encyclopaedias online and no one need bother themselves ever doing any more research or transcibing information from hitherto un-webbed published Victorian Publications. (NOT talking about original research but transcirption of published information which has not yet been available electronically)  I can accept that perhaps when I have written might be bettered,  (it is difficult to elegantly insert to established text without disturbing what is there already), and suggestions are welcome, but, wholesale deletion of everything I have added Is unfair, and not at all in a co-operative or friendly spirit. Bvrly (talk) 13:44, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Smerus did discuss this on the talk page (he started this section). Please don't take the information's deletion personally.  Please don't read sarcasm into people's posts on Wikipedia: it is impossible to gauge someone's intentions from the written word, and it may be more productive to assume Smerus meant what he said.
 * It appears that there are people who object to your introduction of so much information about Chipp, and are unconvinced that he was as important a figure as your contributions assert. This position seems to be just as honourable as yours, and you don't help your argument by implying otherwise.  The debate needs to be decided amicably, by consensus please.  --RobertG ♬ talk 15:04, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

additional Lieder Ohne Worte with different opus numbers
I've posted a question at the page for Lieder ohne Worte, with the above title, but assuming this Mendelssohn page gets much more traffic, this note is just to direct people's attention there. Milkunderwood (talk) 08:10, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * and see my answer there, too. --Smerus (talk) 12:02, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

F*****
To Antandrus:

Regardless of how it's actually rendered in your source, it has always been much more usual to indicate an old-fashioned abbreviation of a first name with a dash or dots rather than with a row of asterisks. Certainly these days when "F****" or whatever looks inescapably obscene, you might want to change it to "F--" or "F...." I don't think you would be doing violence to your source. Or perhaps, even better, you could put "F**** [i.e, Felix]". If for no other reason that it's always going to get changed if you leave it as is. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, good--that looks *much* better now. Hope you don't get any more crap from people deleting your contributions. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:31, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Smerus has correctly called me out on my suggestion of using hyphens instead of asterisks, saying "In print Heyse used the asterisks and that is the only source I definitiely have. We mustn't second guess our sources - that would be WP:OR."

Since the exact same deletion-&-reinstatement of the asterisked initialism has happened again today, would it be acceptable to change the text to read something like this?:
 * "a work of 'his pupil, F****' [i.e. 'Felix' (asterisks as provided in original text)].[12]" Milkunderwood (talk) 05:09, 9 April 2010 (UTC)


 * done ---Smerus (talk) 05:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Mendelssohn as a Jew
User:Varlaam has removed FM from a number of categories which placed FM as a Jew (Jewish composers, etc.) He commented 'Generally a person needs to belong to a category for the category to be included here'. I have sent him the following message:

Hi, I see you took out the categories listing Mendelssohn as a Jewish composer, etc. I think you were in error. Firstly, it seems accepted on WP that 'Jewish' does not only refer to those of Jewish religion, but to those of Jewish ethnicity. See WP article which defines Jews as 'a nation and ethnoreligious group'. Mendelssohn was undoubtedly Jewish in this ethnic sense by both parents - see the article, but I can provide extensive family tree if you wish). He therefore legitimately 'belongs' to Jewish categories. Secondly, as the article makes clear, Mendelssohn was proud of his Jewish ancestry and never distanced himself from it. Thirdly he was recognised by his contemporaries as being of Jewish ethnicity and indeed attacked by some of them (e.g. Richard Wagner) because of it. I was just going to revert your edit as a good faith error, but I thought it worth raising this with you first in the hope that you find the above satisfactory. I am posting this also on the FM discussion page. Best regards ---Smerus (talk) 12:45, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Subject to any discussion/response, I would intend to revert User:Varlaam's edit Smerus (talk) 12:45, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Problem paragraph
The following paragraph in the Reputation section seems problematical to me:

"A more nuanced appreciation of Mendelssohn's work has developed over the last 50 years, which takes into account not only the popular 'war horses', such as the E minor Violin Concerto and the Italian Symphony, but has been able to remove the Victorian varnish from the oratorio Elijah, and has explored the frequently intense and dramatic world of the chamber works. Virtually all of Mendelssohn's published works are now available on CD."

My problems with it are as follows: The paragraph needs to stand on its own as statements of clear and verifiable facts, rather than hint at metaphors the reader can't decipher or allude obliquely to matters discussed elsewhere in the article. The paragraph needs (1) specificity, (2) expansion, (3) removal of opinion, jargon, metaphors, and oblique hints like "remove the Victorian varnish" and "war horses."

Sorry if I'm stepping on anyone's toes, as I'm sure it was intended to convey information clearly; but I think it no longer does. I've tried to copyedit it, but I actually don't know precisely what it meant in the first place, so I haven't been too successful. Could someone with the knowledge and (re)sources kindly ditch both the original and my copyedit, and re-write the thing completely, making it clearer and more complete in the process? Thanks. Softlavender (talk) 02:10, 16 November 2010 (UTC)


 * This edit seems fine for the moment and I agree it is far less oblique and more accessible than the original (for which I was perhaps largely responsible - mea culpa :-}). I would like at some time to revise the entire article to bring it up to GA status, so perhaps it could all be rewritten in that context. And if you would like to assist in that process you are very welcome!--Smerus (talk) 12:15, 16 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Since you mentioned revising the article, you've probably noticed I went through the whole thing and gave it a (relatively mild) copyedit, in favor of economy of wording, avoidance of parentheticals, and ease of comprehension. Some of my commentary about the article is in my edit summaries. One thing I chose to delete rather than rewrite or move (it was 3 AM and I was sleepy) was this statement in the Leipzig section appended to Heine's critique " — anticipating Wagner and many of Mendelssohn’s later critics who attacked the composer’s supposed glibness." I think the information is valid, but either worded unencyclopedicly or in the wrong place. Figurative language depicting Heine actually anticipating (yes I know that's not what is meant but it's still unencyclopedic) later critics' remarks in my opinion ought to be made encyclopedic by simply stating that facts: that later critics like Wagner similarly attacked M's supposed glibness. Or the sentence/idea can be moved to the Reputation section. Or neither (it can just stay deleted). I think that's the only substantive deletion I made, except for deleting the rather overused word "conservative" once when discussing the formation of young Felix's taste and his liking of Bach.


 * Also, the Career section seems a little choppy to me (UPDATE: I just now consolidated some one-paragraph sections, which relieves that problem). I'd like it to maybe include when and where he wrote some of his other major works: the incidental music to MSND; the Violin Concerto, the Italian symphony, etc. It's nice when reading a composer's bio to have a sense of them composing, not just day-jobbing.


 * There's one fact in the lead which is not even mentioned in the body text: "Indeed his father was disinclined to allow Felix to follow a musical career until it became clear that he intended seriously to dedicate himself to it." That should either be moved to or recapitulated and perhaps expanded in the body text. Next, I added 6 most-performed works to the lead, to bring the lead back to the point -- M's music. I'm just going by what I hear most on the radio. Please add more if appropriate and useful. End of article: Rosen is kind of blah to end the article with. Is there someone else we can quote after that to kind of summarize things on a more upbeat note?


 * Last copyedit notes: I'd like to see the article conform to one style of (A) punctuation for abbreviations (I'm in favor of American-style adding periods after all abbreviations, including St. and initials, as this seems to be most accessible and easily understood); (B) placement of punctuation before or after quotes (here I'm in favor of American style again: inside the quotes); (C) serial commas or no (I personally much prefer serial commas). I haven't conformed any of this one way or another because I got busy elsewhere and also perhaps didn't want to make too many editorial decisions. I think that's all for me now. :) Softlavender (talk) 13:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, actually I think I agree with everything you say. Now all I have to do is find the spare time to do something about it......--Smerus (talk) 14:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Has the monument been rebuilt?
A monument to Felix Mendelssohn was destroyed by the Nazis in 1936. Can anyone please tell me whether it has been rebuilt? Thank you. Either way, the information should be included in this article. Das Baz, aka Erudil 17:34, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the monument was (or is) in Leipzig. Das Baz, aka Erudil 17:35, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

And it was rebuilt, I have learned. on October 18, 2008. Das Baz, aka Erudil 21:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And apparently it's an exact reproduction - another excellent example of trying to restore something of so much that was lost due to the Nazis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.67.0.52 (talk) 02:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Image
I somehow doubt File:Mendelssohn Bartholdy 1821.jpg is the subject of the article... 138La (talk) 11:47, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Have no further doubts; it is--Smerus (talk) 19:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Organ Music
I don't have the time right now to put a little blurb together to add to what exists on Mendelssohn's organ music within this article. However, it should be mentioned that there are numerous other free works and such (some quite notable) that have been more recently discovered. A whole slew of references and such exist in a relatively new book entitled Mendelssohn and the Organ by William Little, who also edited a number of recent editions of Mendelssohn's organ works. I feel it would be invaluable to this article, since Mendelssohn is generally (widely) only known for his Preludes/Fugues and Sonatas. Comments please! Orgelspielerkmd (talk) 20:39, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Do by all means write something on M's organ music, but too much on it would unbalance the article. You could always do a separate article (e.g. Felix Mendelssohn (organ music)) and give it a couple of link sentences in the main article.--Smerus 05:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)