Birth

3rd February 1809 Hamburg, Germany

​

Death

4th November 1847 Leipzig, Germany aged 38

​

Musical era

Romantic

​

Family

Grandfather Moses Mendelssohn was a renowned Jewish philosopher and his sister Fanny

was a pianist and composer.

​

Important points from his life

He started taking piano lessons from his mother aged six and had his first public performance aged nine.

He composed his first full symphony aged fifteen and later founded the Leipzig Conservatory, a school of music and theatre.

He was also an accomplished artist, poet, linguist and athlete.

 

Best known pieces

• Violin Concerto in E minor

• Symphony No 4 in A major Italian

• Midsummer Night’s Dream overture and incidental music including the Wedding March

• The Hebrides Overture (Fingal’s Cave)

• Hark the Herald Angels Sing melody

 

What has been said

'Musical prodigies ... are probably no longer so rare; but what this little man can do in extemporizing and playing at sight borders the miraculous, and I could not have believed it possible at so early an age.' Goethe

Queen Victoria described him as 'the greatest musical genius since Mozart' 

​

Back