Welcome to David Jay Webber’s
Felix Mendelssohn Web Site
HONORING THE LIFE AND WORK OF
Welcome to David Jay Webber’s
Felix Mendelssohn Web Site
HONORING THE LIFE AND WORK OF
Hello! Thank you for visiting my Felix Mendelssohn Web Site. I am not a musician or a musical scholar, and the limitations of this site are no doubt due to the “amateur” status of its host. I am nevertheless an avid fan of Mendelssohn and his music. I have a very high opinion of him both as a person and as a composer. As a Lutheran minister I am especially impressed by his sincere Christian faith and by the beautiful sacred music that he produced.
If you have any suggestions or thoughts about this site, please feel free to share them with me. I would love to hear from you!
“He has one of those clear, pure souls that one does not often come across: he believes firmly in his Lutheran creed, and I’m afraid I shocked him terribly by making fun of the Bible.” -- Hector Berlioz
“I cannot forgive this man of independent means that he sees fit to serve the Christian pietists with his great and enormous talent. The more I admire his greatness, the more angry I am to see it so iniquitously misused.” -- Heinrich Heine
“Mendelssohn’s character had a deep feeling of religion for its basis. That this wanted the specifically church colouring is a fact on which we disputed a great deal in our earlier years. As an unconditional Schleiermacherite, I was then almost incapable of recognizing Christianity in any other shape, and, consequently, wronged Felix. [Pastor Friedrich Philipp] Wilmsen, who had instructed and confirmed Mendelssohn, and his brothers and sisters, struck me as a man of no great capacity, and I let fall some hint or other to the effect that it would have been better had they gone to Schleiermacher. Felix was seriously angry, and gave me to understand he would not allow anyone to attack his spiritual adviser, for whom he entertained a feeling of affectionate reverence. It is true that he did not go very often to hear him perform Divine Service. When I recollect, however, with what a serious religious feeling he pursued his art, the exercise of it always being, as it were, a sacred duty; how the first page of every one of his compositions bears impressed on it the initial letter of a prayer; ...how the very best touches in his oratorios result from his delicate tact...; moreover, when I call to mind everything connected with my beloved friend, as regards his views and opinions on art and artists – whether he was standing at the conductor’s desk, sitting at the piano, or taking the tenor part in a quartet – religion and veneration were enthroned in his countenance; this was why his music possessed such a magic charm. On one occasion, he expressly said that sacred music, as such, did not stand higher in his estimation than any other, because every kind of music ought, in its peculiar way, to tend to the glory of God.” -- Julius Schubring
General sites that are similar to this one:
A Site in the Memory of Felix Mendelssohn
Sites with biographical data and analyses of Mendelssohn’s work:
Felix Mendelssohn Commemoration - Redeemer Lutheran Church, Scottsdale, Arizona
Felix Mendelssohn and Johann Sebastian Bach
A Theological-Musical Appraisal Viewing the Work of Luther, Bach, and Mendelssohn
Hark! Felix Mendelssohn Compose
The Sacred Choral Works (Carus-Verlag)
Soli Deo Gloria: The Life of Felix Mendelssohn
Facility & Mastery: Felix Mendelssohn
Hutchinson Family Encyclopedia
Music in the Western Tradition
Felix Mendelssohn: Musical Genius and Jewish Casualty
Judge Me, O God (Psalm 43)
The “Suppression” of Fanny Mendelssohn: Rethinking Feminist Biography
Emory University: 19th Century Music
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s Letters (The Atlantic Monthly)
The Mendelssohn Family (The Atlantic Monthly)
Mendelssohn and His Music (Putnam’s Monthly)
Mendelssohn’s Letters to Madame Moscheles (Harper’s New Monthly Magazine)
Ut Re Mi (The John Rylands Library)
A site with the words to many of Mendelssohn’s songs:
Lieder (Lied and Songs Text Page)
Sites with RealPlayer and MP3 recordings of Mendelssohn’s music:
Mendelssohn’s Home in Leipzig
Sites with MIDI recordings of Mendelssohn’s music:
Mendelssohn’s Grave in Berlin
Email:
Web Sites Maintained by David Jay Webber
