Editing Felix Mendelssohn (section)

==Personal life==

=== Personality ===
[[File:Ansicht von Luzern - Aquarell Mendelsohn 1847FXD.jpg|thumb|left|alt= |View of [[Lucerne]]&nbsp;– watercolour by Mendelssohn, 1847]]

While Mendelssohn was often presented as equable, happy, and placid in temperament, particularly in the detailed family memoirs published by his nephew Sebastian Hensel after the composer's death,{{sfn|Hensel|1884|p=}} this was misleading. The music historian R. Larry Todd notes "the remarkable process of idealization" of Mendelssohn's character "that crystallized in the memoirs of the composer's circle", including Hensel's.{{sfn|Todd|2003|p=xxii}} The nickname "discontented Polish count" was given to Mendelssohn on account of his aloofness, and he referred to the epithet in his letters.{{sfn|Devrient|1869|p=182n}} He was frequently given to fits of temper which occasionally led to collapse. Devrient mentions that on one occasion in the 1830s, when his wishes had been crossed, "his excitement was increased so fearfully&nbsp;... that when the family was assembled&nbsp;... he began to talk incoherently in English. The stern voice of his father at last checked the wild torrent of words; they took him to bed, and a profound sleep of twelve hours restored him to his normal state".{{sfn|Devrient|1869|p=91}} Such fits may be related to his early death.{{sfn|Sterndale Bennett|1955|p=376}}

Mendelssohn was an enthusiastic visual artist who worked in pencil and [[watercolour]], a skill which he enjoyed throughout his life.{{sfn|Brown|2003|pp=47–53}}<ref>[http://www.themendelssohnproject.org/about_tmp/activities/artworks_2.htm "Visual Artwork by Felix Mendelssohn"], ''The Mendelssohn Project'' website. Retrieved 3 December 2017.</ref> His correspondence indicates that he could write with considerable wit in German and English&nbsp;– his letters were sometimes accompanied by humorous sketches and cartoons.{{sfn|Mendelssohn|1986|pp=x–xiii}}

=== Religion ===
On 21 March 1816, at the age of seven years, Mendelssohn was baptised with his brother and sisters in a private domestic ceremony by Johann Jakob Stegemann, Minister of the [[Prussian Union of Churches#Royal attempts to merge Lutherans and Calvinists|Evangelical]] congregation of Berlin's [[Jerusalem Church (Berlin)|Jerusalem Church]] and [[New Church (Berlin)|New Church]].{{sfn|Todd|2003|p=33}} Although Mendelssohn was a conforming Christian as a member of the Reformed Church,{{refn|His friend the cleric Julius Schubring noted that although Mendelssohn "entertained a feeling of affectionate reverence" for his spiritual adviser, the pastor Friedrich Philipp Wilmsen (1770–1831) at the [[Parochialkirche|Reformed Parochial Church]], "it is true that he did not go very often to hear him perform Divine Service".{{sfn|Todd|1991|p=227}}|group=n}} he was both conscious and proud of his Jewish ancestry and notably of his connection with his grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn. He was the prime mover in proposing to the publisher Heinrich Brockhaus a complete edition of Moses' works, which continued with the support of his uncle, [[Joseph Mendelssohn]].{{sfn|Brown|2003|p=84}} Felix was notably reluctant, either in his letters or conversation, to comment on his innermost beliefs; his friend Devrient wrote that "[his] deep convictions were never uttered in intercourse with the world; only in rare and intimate moments did they ever appear, and then only in the slightest and most humorous allusions".{{sfn|Devrient|1869|pp=9–10}} Thus for example in a letter to his sister Rebecka, Mendelssohn rebukes her complaint about an unpleasant relative: "What do you mean by saying you are not hostile to Jews? I hope this was a joke&nbsp;[...] It is really sweet of you that you do not despise your family, isn't it?"{{sfn|Werner|1963|pp=42–43}} Some modern scholars have devoted considerable energy to demonstrate either that Mendelssohn was deeply sympathetic to his ancestors' Jewish beliefs, or that he was hostile to this and sincere in his Christian beliefs.{{refn|The debate became heated when it was discovered that the Mendelssohn scholar Eric Werner had been over-enthusiastic in his interpretation of some documentation in an attempt to establish Felix's Jewish sympathies. See ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'', vols. 82–83 (1998), with articles by J. Sposato, [[Leon Botstein]] and others, for expressions of both points of view; and see Conway (2012){{sfn|Conway|2012|pp=173–184}} for a ''[[tertium quid]]''.|group=n}}

=== Mendelssohn and his contemporaries ===
[[File:Giacomo Meyerbeer Kriehuber.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|Giacomo Meyerbeer by [[Josef Kriehuber]], 1847]] Throughout his life Mendelssohn was wary of the more radical musical developments undertaken by some of his contemporaries. He was generally on friendly, if sometimes somewhat cool, terms with [[Hector Berlioz]], [[Franz Liszt]], and [[Giacomo Meyerbeer]], but in his letters expresses his frank disapproval of their works, for example writing of Liszt that his compositions were "inferior to his playing, and […] only calculated for virtuosos";{{sfn|Mercer-Taylor|2000|p=144}} of Berlioz's overture ''[[Les francs-juges]]'' "[T]he orchestration is such a frightful muddle&nbsp;[...] that one ought to wash one's hands after handling one of his scores";{{sfn|Mercer-Taylor|2000|p=98}} and of Meyerbeer's opera ''[[Robert le diable]]'' "I consider it ignoble", calling its villain Bertram "a poor devil".{{sfn|Todd|2003|p=252}} When his friend the composer [[Ferdinand Hiller]] suggested in conversation to Mendelssohn that he looked rather like Meyerbeer&nbsp;– they were actually distant cousins, both descendants of Rabbi [[Moses Isserles]]&nbsp;– Mendelssohn was so upset that he immediately went to get a haircut to differentiate himself.{{sfn|Hiller|1874|pp=23–24}}

In particular, Mendelssohn seems to have regarded Paris and its music with the greatest of suspicion and an almost puritanical distaste. Attempts made during his visit there to interest him in [[Saint-Simonianism]] ended in embarrassing scenes.{{sfn|Locke|1986|pp=107–114}} It is significant that the only musician with whom Mendelssohn remained a close personal friend, Ignaz Moscheles, was of an older generation and equally conservative in outlook. Moscheles preserved this conservative attitude at the Leipzig Conservatory until his own death in 1870.{{sfn|Conway|2012|pp=193–194}}

=== Marriage and children ===
[[File:Cecile Mendelssohn Bartholdy.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|alt= |Mendelssohn's wife Cécile (1846) by [[Eduard Magnus]]]] [[File:Magnus Jenny Lind.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|Jenny Lind by Eduard Magnus, 1862]]Mendelssohn married Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud (10 October 1817&nbsp;– 25 September 1853), the daughter of a French Reformed Church clergyman, on 28 March 1837.{{sfn|Todd|2003|pp=102, 347}} The couple had five children: Carl, Marie, Paul, Lili and Felix August. The second youngest child, Felix August, contracted [[measles]] in 1844 and was left with impaired health; he died in 1851.{{sfn|Todd|2003|pp=485–486}} The eldest, Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdy (7 February 1838&nbsp;– 23 February 1897), became a historian and professor of history at [[Heidelberg University|Heidelberg]] and [[Freiburg University|Freiburg]] universities; he died in a psychiatric institution in Freiburg aged 59.{{sfn|Schoeps|2009|pp=211–214}} [[Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy]] (1841–1880) was a noted chemist and pioneered the manufacture of [[aniline]] dye. Marie married Victor Benecke and lived in London. Lili married [[Adolf Wach]], later professor of law at [[Leipzig University]].{{sfn|Schoeps|2009|p=163}}

The family papers inherited by Marie's and Lili's children form the basis of the extensive collection of Mendelssohn manuscripts, including the so-called "Green Books" of his correspondence, now in the [[Bodleian Library]] at Oxford University.<ref>[http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/1500-1900/mendelssohn/mendelssohn.html The Mendelssohn Papers], Bodleian Library website. Retrieved 3 December 2017.</ref> Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy died less than six years after her husband, on 25 September 1853.{{sfn|Schoeps|2009|p=193}}

=== Jenny Lind ===
Mendelssohn became close to the Swedish soprano [[Jenny Lind]], whom he met in October 1844. Papers confirming their relationship had not been made public.<ref name="independent.co.uk">[[Jessica Duchen|Duchen, Jessica]]. [http://jessicaduchen.co.uk/pdfs/indi_2009/mendelssohn_jan12.pdf "Conspiracy of Silence: Could the Release of Secret Documents Shatter Felix Mendelssohn's Reputation?"], ''[[The Independent]]'', 12 January 2009. Retrieved 4 August 2014</ref>{{refn|Mercer-Taylor wrote that although there was no currently available hard evidence of a physical affair between the two, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".{{sfn|Mercer-Taylor|2000|p=192}} Clive Brown wrote that "it has been rumoured that [...] papers tend to substantiate the notion of an affair between Mendelssohn and Lind, though with what degree of reliability must remain highly questionable".{{sfn|Brown|2003|p=33}}|group=n}} In 2013, George Biddlecombe confirmed in the ''[[Journal of the Royal Musical Association]]'' that "The Committee of the [[Mendelssohn Scholarship]] Foundation possesses material indicating that Mendelssohn wrote passionate love letters to Jenny Lind entreating her to join him in an adulterous relationship and threatening suicide as a means of exerting pressure upon her, and that these letters were destroyed on being discovered after her death."{{sfn|Biddlecombe|2013|p=85}}

Mendelssohn met and worked with Lind many times, and started an opera, ''Lorelei'', for her, based on the legend of the [[Lorelei]] Rhine maidens; the opera was unfinished at his death. He is said to have tailored the aria "Hear Ye Israel", in his oratorio ''[[Elijah (oratorio)|Elijah]]'', to Lind's voice, although she did not sing the part until after his death, at a concert in December 1848.{{sfn|Sanders|1956|p=466}} In 1847, Mendelssohn attended a London performance of Meyerbeer's ''Robert le diable''&nbsp;– an opera that musically he despised&nbsp;– in order to hear Lind's British debut, in the role of Alice. The music critic [[Henry Chorley]], who was with him, wrote: "I see as I write the smile with which Mendelssohn, whose enjoyment of Mdlle. Lind's talent was unlimited, turned round and looked at me, as if a load of anxiety had been taken off his mind. His attachment to Mdlle. Lind's genius as a singer was unbounded, as was his desire for her success."{{sfn|Chorley|1972|p=194}}

Upon Mendelssohn's death, Lind wrote: "[He was] the only person who brought fulfillment to my spirit, and almost as soon as I found him I lost him again." In 1849, she established the [[Mendelssohn Scholarship]] Foundation, which makes an award to a young resident British composer every two years in Mendelssohn's memory. The first winner of the scholarship, in 1856, was [[Arthur Sullivan]], then aged 14. In 1869, Lind erected a plaque in Mendelssohn's memory at his birthplace in Hamburg.<ref name="independent.co.uk" />{{sfn|Sanders|1956|p=467}}