Felix Mendelssohn and His Times

by Heinrich Eduard Jacob, Richard Winston (Translator), Clara Winston (Translator)

Die stimmungsvolle Einführung, die die Entstehung der Sommernachtstraum-Ouvertüre schildert, und Jacobs scharfe Verteidigung Felix Mendelssohns gegen die Angriffe Richard Wagners in dessen Hetzschrift über das »Judentum in der Musik« bilden den Rahmen einer außergewöhnlichen Biographie. Dank seiner glänzenden Erzählkunst und seines historischen, soziologischen und psychologischen Wissens gelingt Jacob über das differenzierte Porträt Mendelssohns hinaus ein Kulturbild der ersten Hälfte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Neben Analyse und Einordnung der Schöpfungen des großen Romantikers und der farbigen Erzählung seines Lebens geht es Heinrich Eduard Jacob vor allem um die Ehrenrettung Mendelssohns, der durch den Antisemitismus des späten 19. Jahrhunderts ins Vergessen gestoßen oder, wie Jacob sagt, künstlerisch »ermordet« wurde.
(Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine frühere Ausgabe.)

Genres: Biography, Music

356 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

German and American journalist and author. Born to a Jewish family in Berlin and raised partly in Vienna, Jacob worked for two decades as a journalist and biographer before the rise to power of the Nazi Party. Interned in the late 1930s in the concentration camps at Dachau and then Buchenwald, he was released through the efforts of his future wife Dora, and emigrated to the United States. There he continued to publish books and contribute to newspapers before returning to Europe after the Second World War. Ill health, aggravated by his experiences in the camps, dogged him in later life, but he continued to publish through to the end of the 1950s. He wrote also under the pen names Henry E. Jacob and Eric Jens Petersen.

Reviews

[Altai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Felix Mendelsshon's biography and his living atmosphere well narrated.

"Here was a man of immeasurable greatness-like Prometheus who had brought the gift of fire to mankind, Beethoven had given his age a new music. And like Prometheus, who was so cruelly punished for his temerity, Beethoven was punished by loss of hearing."
Probably the most beautiful portrayed words in between music and literature -I ever read.

The book beautifully narrates Mendelssohn’s compositions and life, while also exploring Goethe, Balthasar Bekker, Kant, Wagner, ideologies, and other related topics.
At the same time that density is making book more than Biography -painfully, I guess.
Neverthless, I loved the book so much.

[Paul Baker]

Very helpful context for the music created by this influential composer