Editing Felix Mendelssohn (section)

===The first century===
[[File:Mendelssohn Statue Thomaskirche.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|alt=| The reconstructed Mendelssohn monument near Leipzig's [[St. Thomas Church, Leipzig|St. Thomas Church]], dedicated in 2008<ref name="City of Leipzig">{{cite web|title= Mendelssohn kehrt zurück Rekonstruiertes Denkmal am Dittrichring|url= https://www.leipzig.de/news/news/mendelssohn-kehrt-zurck-rekonstruiertes-denkmal-am-dittrichring/|publisher= City of Leipzig|language=de|access-date= 20 December 2017}}</ref>]]
In the immediate wake of Mendelssohn's death, he was mourned both in Germany and England. However, the conservative strain in Mendelssohn, which set him apart from some of his more flamboyant contemporaries, bred a corollary condescension amongst some of them toward his music. Mendelssohn's relations with [[Hector Berlioz|Berlioz]], [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]] and others had been uneasy and equivocal. Listeners who had raised questions about Mendelssohn's talent included [[Heinrich Heine]], who wrote in 1836 after hearing the oratorio ''St. Paul'' that his work was

<blockquote>characterized by a great, strict, very serious seriousness, a determined, almost importunate tendency to follow classical models, the finest, cleverest calculation, sharp intelligence and, finally, complete lack of naïveté. But is there in art any originality of genius without naïveté?{{sfn|Todd|1991|p=360}}{{sfn|Todd|2003|pp=448–449}}</blockquote>

Such criticism of Mendelssohn for his very ability&nbsp;– which could be characterised negatively as facility&nbsp;– was taken to further lengths by [[Richard Wagner]]. Mendelssohn's success, his popularity and his Jewish origins irked Wagner sufficiently to damn Mendelssohn with faint praise, three years after his death, in an anti-Jewish pamphlet ''[[Das Judenthum in der Musik]]'':{{sfn|Conway|2012|p=263}}

<blockquote>[Mendelssohn] has shown us that a Jew may have the amplest store of specific talents, may own the finest and most varied culture, the highest and tenderest sense of honour&nbsp;– yet without all these pre-eminences helping him, were it but one single time, to call forth in us that deep, that heart-searching effect which we await from art&nbsp;[...] The washiness and the whimsicality of our present musical style has been&nbsp;[...] pushed to its utmost pitch by Mendelssohn's endeavour to speak out a vague, an almost nugatory Content as interestingly and spiritedly as possible.{{sfn|Wagner|1995|pp=93–95}}{{refn|Echoes of such views survive today in critiques of Mendelssohn's alleged mediocrity. For a modern example see [[Damian Thompson]], [https://web.archive.org/web/20101113061710/http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/damianthompson/100048736/why-did-mendelssohn-lose-his-mojo/ "Why did Mendelssohn lose his mojo?"], ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' 11 November 2010, retrieved 25 September 2017).|group=n}}</blockquote>

The philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] expressed consistent admiration for Mendelssohn's music, in contrast to his general scorn for "Teutonic" Romanticism:

<blockquote>At any rate, the whole music of romanticism [e.g. Schumann and Wagner]&nbsp;... was second-rate music from the very start, and real musicians took little notice of it. Things were different with Felix Mendelssohn, that halcyon master who, thanks to his easier, purer, happier soul, was quickly honoured and just as quickly forgotten, as a lovely ''incident'' in German music.{{sfn|Nietzsche|2002|p=138}}</blockquote>

Some readers, however, have interpreted Nietzsche's characterization of Mendelssohn as a 'lovely incident' as condescending.{{sfn|Todd|2001|loc=§14}}

In the 20th century the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi regime]] and its ''[[Reichsmusikkammer]]'' cited Mendelssohn's Jewish origin in banning performance and publication of his works, even asking Nazi-approved composers to rewrite incidental music for ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' ([[Carl Orff]] obliged).<ref>{{cite web|title= Music and the Holocaust: Carl Orff|url= http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/politics-and-propaganda/third-reich/orff-carl/|publisher= World ORT|access-date= 3 December 2017}}</ref> Under the Nazis, "Mendelssohn was presented as a dangerous 'accident' of music history, who played a decisive role in rendering German music in the 19th century 'degenerate'."<ref>{{harvtxt|Hansen|Vogt|2009}}, cited on web page of [http://www.mlgk.de/veranstaltungen/bloodandspirit.html Martin Luther Memorial Church, Eisenach] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402183805/http://www.mlgk.de/veranstaltungen/bloodandspirit.html |date=2 April 2012 }}</ref> The [[Mendelssohn Scholarship#Mendelssohn Scholarship in Germany|German Mendelssohn Scholarship]] for students at the Leipzig Conservatoire was discontinued in 1934 (and not revived until 1963). The monument dedicated to Mendelssohn erected in Leipzig in 1892 was removed by the Nazis in 1936. A replacement was erected in 2008.<ref name="City of Leipzig"/> The bronze statue of Mendelssohn by [[Clemens Buscher]] outside the Düsseldorf Opera House was also removed and destroyed by the Nazis in 1936. A replacement was erected in 2012. Mendelssohn's grave remained unmolested during the Nazi years.<ref>{{cite web|title= Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy – The Jewish Question|url= http://www.classicfm.com/composers/mendelssohn/guides/felix-mendelssohn-bartholdy-jewish-question|publisher= [[Classic FM (UK)|Classic FM]]|access-date= 20 December 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title= Mendelssohn's statue returns to Düsseldorf|url= http://www.classical-music.com/news/mendelssohn%E2%80%99s-statue-returns-d%C3%BCsseldorf|publisher= Classical-music.com ([[BBC Music Magazine]])|access-date= 20 December 2017|archive-date= 24 December 2017|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171224124558/http://www.classical-music.com/news/mendelssohn%E2%80%99s-statue-returns-d%C3%BCsseldorf|url-status= dead}}</ref>

Mendelssohn's reputation in Britain remained high throughout the 19th century. Prince Albert inscribed (in German) a libretto for the oratorio ''Elijah'' in 1847: "To the noble artist who, surrounded by the [[Baal]]-worship of false art, has been able, like a second Elijah, through genius and study, to remain true to the service of true art."{{sfn|Mercer-Taylor|2000|p=200}} In 1851 an adulatory novel by the teenaged [[Elizabeth Sara Sheppard]] was published, ''[[Charles Auchester]]''.<ref>{{cite book|last= Sheppard|first= Elizabeth|title= Charles Auchester|url= https://archive.org/details/charlesauchester00shep_841|publisher= A.C. McClurg and Co.|location= Chicago|year= 1891|oclc= 2327181}}</ref> The book features as its leading character the "Chevalier Seraphel", an idealized portrait of Mendelssohn, and remained in print for nearly 80 years.{{sfn|Conway|2012|p=257}} In 1854 Queen Victoria requested that [[the Crystal Palace]] include a statue of Mendelssohn when it was rebuilt.{{refn|It was the only statue in the Palace made of bronze and the only one to survive the 1936 fire that destroyed the Palace. The statue is now situated in [[Eltham College]], London.{{sfn|Eatock|2009|p=120}}|group=n}} Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" from ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' was played at the wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter, [[Empress Frederick|Princess Victoria, The Princess Royal]], to [[Frederick III, German Emperor|Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia]] in 1858, and it remains popular at marriage ceremonies.{{sfn|Emmett|1996|p=755}} Mendelssohn's pupil Sterndale Bennett was a major force in British musical education until his death in 1875, and a great upholder of his master's traditions; he numbered among his pupils many of the next generation of English composers, including Sullivan, [[Hubert Parry]] and [[Francis Edward Bache]].{{sfn|Firman|2004|p=}}

By the early twentieth century, many critics, including [[George Bernard Shaw|Bernard Shaw]], began to condemn Mendelssohn's music for its association with Victorian cultural insularity; Shaw in particular complained of the composer's "[[wikt:kid gloves|kid-glove]] gentility, his conventional sentimentality, and his despicable oratorio-mongering".{{sfn|Todd|2003|p=6}} In the 1950s the scholar [[Wilfrid Mellers]] complained of Mendelssohn's "spurious religiosity which reflected the element of unconscious [[hypocrisy|humbug]] in our morality".{{sfn|Mellers|1957|p=31}} A contrasting opinion came from the pianist and composer [[Ferruccio Busoni]], who considered Mendelssohn "a master of undisputed greatness" and "an heir of Mozart".<ref>[[Andrew Porter (music critic)|Andrew Porter]], Liner notes to [[Walter Gieseking]]'s recording of Mendelssohn's ''Songs without Words'', Angel 35428.</ref> Busoni, like earlier virtuosi such as Anton Rubinstein<ref>See Rubinstein's concert programmes in {{harvtxt|Barenboim|1962}}, ''passim''</ref> and Charles-Valentin Alkan,{{sfn|Smith|2000|pp=97, 99}} regularly included Mendelssohn's piano works in his recitals.