Talk:Felix Mendelssohn/Archive 4

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German?

The article talks of Mendelssohn as being German, e.g., "greatest minds of Germany." Best I can tell, however, "Germany" did not exist at the time. I'm sure either I'm wrong on the facts or wikipedia has already addressed this issue, but I thought I'd ask.

Cka3n (talk) 20:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The word 'German' did not relate in FMB's time to the not yet existent state of Germany, but to people who spoke German and the countries they lived in.--Smerus (talk) 22:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

German is an ethnic term. Mendelssohn's nationality was Prussian, so it may be more historically accurate to call him a Prussian composer.82.36.94.228 (talk) 21:18, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Well he was born in Hamburg - so you 'could' call him Westphalian...... but 'German' is simplest and eveyone understands it unless they are nit-picking. It may be an ethnic term to 82.36.94.228 (talk), but to Mendelssohn's contemporaries it simply signified anyone who spoke the German language.--Smerus (talk) 11:07, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Which is the same thing is it not? The German people are the people who speak German. Westphalia was, by the way, part of Prussia in Mendelssohn's time!82.36.94.228 (talk) 07:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Not when he was born, it wasn't (Confederation of the Rhine).--Smerus (talk) 09:21, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Interesting discussion, but pointless. Hamburg was an independent city in 1809 (in 1806 it became the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, or the German-language equivalent of that phrase); Napoleon annexed it to the 'First French Empire in 1810; Russian forces liberated it in 1814. So, Felix is IndependentHamburgerHanseatic/French/Russian, instead of German. Raymondwinn (talk) 20:54, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Funny, but no - he was a German Jew - but unquestionably his nationality was German. 98.67.0.52 (talk) 02:42, 20 November 2010 (UTC)HammerFilmFan

Yeah, let's rewrite history. Goethe was a famous Frankfurter poet, Schiller a Wurttembergish playwright, Luther a Saxon reformer and so on. Funny that all those people called themselves Germans. German nationalists such as Ulrich von Hutten or Conrad Celtis would be quite angry to be called non-German but who cares. Nowadays everyone knows better what those deceased people were than the people themselves, isn't it so? -- Orthographicus (talk) 10:23, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

While we're on nationalites/ nations, I've just replaced a couple of 'Britain's for 'England', as the two shouldn't really be interchangeable (even if he didn't go to Scotland or Wales on specific visits, it should still be Britain). Katiehawks (talk) 08:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely right,many thanks!--Smerus (talk) 20:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

german can mean/has meant (in different contexts) german nationality, ethnic german, culturally german, native german speaker,... 91.89.243.218 (talk) 16:36, 13 March 2014 (UTC) Hitlers definition of what/who is german or not is not necessarily the only possibil definition of what/who is german 91.89.243.218 (talk) 16:38, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I would like to add to this discussion that I have changed my opinion in the meantime and think that we should really get rid of the term German in pre-1871 eras as it's an ambiguous word at best. While it is true that contemporaries called themselves "German" and thought of themselves as members of an ethnic "German" group, modern people are nitpicking their historic Germans and do not necessarily comply with the self-identification of these people. Rembrandt, f.ex., lived during a time when the Dutch still called themselves Nederduytschers (Lower Germans). We would, hence, have to call him German as well which no one does, however. Consequently, we should eschew the word and refer to such people either as "German-speaking" or by their respective nationality, i.e. Prussian, Bavarian, Westphalian, or citizen of Hamburg. Rembrandt, Erasmus, Gottfried Keller and Siegmund Freud were as "German" as Mendelssohn -- either we call all of them "Germans", or none. -- Orthographicus (talk) 20:35, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Raising this again per my report at MPE. Mendelssohn was either a Hamburger, or Prussian. I'd lean towards the former without firm evidence of the latter. It is incorrect to call him German. Mjroots (talk) 06:32, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

I think not. See Orthographicus above.--Smerus (talk) 06:45, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Can you link German to German language, which he was. Or drop it completely? - We don't say Mozart was Austrian. Happy birthday, Mr. Mendelssohn! Will sing two of your pieces today, and write an article about one, promised. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:13, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

@Smerus: - Othographicus agrees with me - "I have changed my opinion in the meantime and think that we should really get rid of the term German in pre-1871 eras as it's an ambiguous word at best". Mjroots (talk) 10:03, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Letter from Felix to his father , February 1832: "Your injunction ..to make choice of the country that I preferred to live in, I have equally obeyed....That country is Germany [Deutschland]".(Hensel, vol. 1, p. 275). Whatever you, Orthographicus or indeed I think or feel, here is the answer from the horses's mouth - 40 years before Germany became a country, it was a concept with which the composer identified. and by the way Gerda Arendt, I don't know the common usage in Germany, but in Britain Mozart is frequently referred to as Austrian: in Grove/Oxford Music Online, for example, which also refers to Mendelssohn as German. If it's good enough for English Grove/OMO, it's good enough for English Wikipedia.--Smerus (talk) 17:58, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Letter from Mozart to his father, 17 August 1782: "(...) I believe I am capable of bringing honor to any court—and if Germany, my beloved Fatherland, of which, as you know, I am proud, will not take me up—well, let France or England, in God's name become the richer by another talented German—and that to the disgrace of the German nation!" That's exactly what I meant. Both people referred to themselves as Germans during their days, but today, the word is only generally applied to one of them and not the other. That's illogical. It would be better to simply omit the word "German" in general so as to stop this very confusing usage. -- Orthographicus (talk) 15:42, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

There happens to be a whole article about this issue as it pertains to Mozart: Mozart's nationality. I rather like how Julian Rushton is quoted as putting it: "Mozart, by modern criteria Austrian, counted himself a German composer." Now it seems to me that since Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, which is now in Germany, and the cities he worked in for extended periods of time are now all in Germany, he is German by modern criteria as well; and since he also counted himself German, that seems to be good enough to settle the matter. Double sharp (talk) 15:58, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

That's my entire point. We use modern criteria to ascribe an identity to people long deceased, and do so very inconsistently. (As for Mozart, modern borders play a role. As for Kant, they don't. Beethoven is generally counted as a German, but Haydn isn't although both called themselves "Germans" during their lifetimes and mainly worked in what was then Austria.) This inconsistency doesn't make any sense and is what I reject. This could be solved by omitting the word "German", which nowadays has a completely different meaning from what it meant then. I know that this is a lost fight, but I at least want to draw everyone's attention to the completely nonsensical way we nowadays ascribe nationalities to dead people. -- Orthographicus (talk) 06:42, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, I agree with you of course that it is nonsensical. I think that the reason modern borders play a role for figures who worked in both what are now Austria and Germany because is because Austria and Germany today are both German-speaking countries, and most of the population there now is descended from the population then, so it doesn't look obviously incongruous to call Mozart an Austrian unless you know the history. (In fact, because Salzburg is now in Austria, probably the average person who doesn't know the history and what these terms meant then would find it a bit stranger to call him a German.) We don't see this for Kant and E. T. A. Hoffmann because it's obvious to everyone that there is no sense in which either of them were "Russian", just as there's no sense in which Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff was "Polish". In a case like Copernicus, in which there are senses in which he was "German" and "Polish", nonstop anachronistic and absurd arguments arise. This seems to imply that the criteria as far as they exist are mostly cultural-linguistic, except when it comes to Austria and Germany, where it simply follows modern borders because Austrians and Germans today don't generally think of each other as belonging to one nation despite sharing a common language and hence the cultural-linguistic criterion falls silent. (Not to mention that if you follow the composers' cultural self-identifications as Germans, it looks through the lens of modern understandings of nationality as if you're taking all the cultural figures away from Austria, even though this is obviously nothing like what they meant.) In Mozart's case we indeed don't list nationality in the lede and relegate it to a footnote pointing to a subarticle (but we call Haydn and Schubert both Austrian and Beethoven German). Nonetheless, since in Mendelssohn's case he was both German in the current meaning and the meaning he would have understood, I think this is a bit of a non-issue in this case. Double sharp (talk) 15:04, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Text dates

I have reverted two edits by an editor providing dates of texts of Goethe set by Mendelssohn, together with citations. I did this because these dates and edits add nothing to an article on Mendelssohn (though indeed they could appropriately belong in articles on the works concerned, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage and Die erste Walpurgisnacht - see WP:DETAIL). In the Mendelssohn article they are however superfluous. We don't for example give there the date of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Psalm 42, Athalie, Oedipus at Colonnus or Phaedra - and why should we? None of these works - or the Goethe works - were written specifcally for FM and their dates are immaterial for his biography.--Smerus (talk) 07:26, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm late, but certainly agree with this rationale. Aza24 (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Fanny

I wonder if we could include something brief about Fanny in the lead? There seems to be more than enough (and rather convenient) space at the of the second paragraph. My first thought was something along the lines of His sister, Fanny, grew up with the same education; she would become a noted composer and pianist herself, and published some of her works under Felix's name. but there are likely better, and perhaps more concise ways to go about this, if desired. Aza24 (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks for this very helpful suggestion. I have now put something in the lead, and made sure it was consistent with info in the article.--Smerus (talk) 19:56, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Cheers, looks great! Aza24 (talk) 21:04, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

The first mention of Rebecka in the "Childhood" section links to the page of "Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet", a German mathematician

I'm presuming this is a malicious edit, but I thought I'd let everyone know. CatObsession (talk) 15:33, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

It does so because Rebecka was married to him and the article on him deals with their marriage. THere is no separate page on her. So it is not inappropriate Sbishop (talk) 15:41, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

It links directly to the section about her marriage with Dirichlet, so there are no grounds for confusion.--Smerus (talk) 18:19, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

His place of birth

The article for the town of Eppstein in Wikipedia says that he was "from Eppstein" and this article says that he was born in Hamburg.S. Valkemirer (talk) 22:08, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Multiple reliable sources support that he was born in Hamburg, including the Cambridge Companion and Grove Music Online. Sometimes someone is designated as being "from" a place based on living there for a time but not necessarily being born there. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:01, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

His name was added to the list with this edit, citing the German Wikipedia. In the "Places of remembrance and commemorative plaques" section of the German article about the composer (de:Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy#Erinnerungsorte und Gedenktafeln) it says that he often stayed in Eppstein between 1837 and 1847. In other words, the town has made the most of a famous visitor. Favonian (talk) 10:25, 10 April 2023 (UTC)