Mendelssohn Handbook

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was a remarkably versatile composer. Robert Schumann referred to him as the Mozart of the 19th century, while Johannes Brahms and Max Reger revered him as a romantic visionary. Celebrated during his lifetime, he was later subjected to anti-Semitic attacks by Richard Wagner and pushed out of concert stages, making him the composer who has suffered the most from his own reception history. This handbook provides detailed discussions of all his works, general representations of his life and compositional concepts in their musical and cultural context, as well as aspects of his impact history from both a compositional and historical perspective. The aim of this handbook is to better understand Mendelssohn's position in his time and to present various approaches to his compositions.