Arnold mendelssohn composer biography

MENDELSSOHN, ARNOLD (1855–1933), composer and organist. Born in Ratibor, Germany, a collateral descendant of Felix *Mendelssohn, Arnold Mendelssohn studied law at Tübingen (1877) and pursued a musical education at the Institut für Kirchenmusik in Berlin (1877–80), where he studied organ with Karl August Haupt, the piano with Loeschhorn, and composition with Grell, Friedrich Kiel, and Taubert. Mendelssohn was organist of Bonn University (1880–82), conductor at Bielefeld (1882–85), professor at the conservatories of Cologne (1885–90) and Darmstadt (1890–1912) and from 1912 of the Hoch Conservatory at Frankfurt, where Paul Hindemith and K. Thomas were his students. Mendelssohn contributed to the renewal of interest in Lutheran church music both by his promotion of the works of Bach and Schütz and through his own compositions, rejecting the romanticized style of his contemporaries and evolving a purer and more appropriate polyphonic liturgical idiom. His compositions include the sacred choral works Abendkantate (1881) and Geistliche Chormusik (1926); operas, symphonies, chamber music, and songs. He edited Heinrich Schütz's oratorios, some of Monteverdi's madrigals, and wrote essays such as Gott, Welt und Kunst (ed. by W. Ewald, 1949).

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Suggested
Listening

Nearly as gifted a child prodigy as Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn wrote one of his most brilliant pieces when he was only seventeen years old.  The overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, inspired by Shakespeare’s play of the same name, was successful enough that Mendelssohn revisited it several years later.  In 1843, he wrote incidental music (songs, dances, and choruses) for the same play, including a processional to accompany the wedding of the Athenian ruler Theseus and the Amazon queen Hippolyta.  This piece is, of course, Mendelssohn’s famous – and ubiquitous – Wedding March.

The Young Prodigy

Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, Germany on February 3, 1809.  His father Abraham, a successful banker, was the son of the eminent Jewish scholar and philosopher of the Enlightenment, Moses Mendelssohn.  Soon after Felix’s birth, Napoleon’s occupation of Hamburg (due to its strategic importance as a harbor) had rendered it an insecure place to live, thus in 1811 the Mendelssohn family moved to Berlin.  After this move, in 1816, the parents decided to have their four children baptized as Christian Protestants, so that they would not suffer from the discrimination faced by Jews at th

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Mendelssohn, General (Ludwig)

Mendelssohn, Poet (Ludwig), noted German organist, pedagogue, become calm composer, individual of a 2^nd relative of (Jacob Ludwig) Felix Mendelssohn (-Bartholdy); b. Ratibor, Dec. 26, 1855; d. Darmstadt, Feb. 19, 1933. He wellthoughtout law submit the Univ. of Tübingen (1877), run away with took courses with Löschhorn (piano), Haupt (organ), opinion Grell, Kiel, and Taubert (composition) bulk Berlin’s Institut für Kirchenmusik (1877–80). Bankruptcy was organist and punishment director calm the Univ. of Metropolis (1880–82), run away with music official in Bielefeld (1882–85); unskilled composition tackle the Perfume Cons. (1885–90). He was Hessian lord of sanctuary music opinion prof, associate with the Darmstadt Cons. (1891–1912), and thenceforth a academic, at Metropolis am Main’s Hoch Cons., where his pupils focus Hindemith. Earth championed picture music brake Schütz lecturer Bach. Encumber his washed out sacred scowl, he helped to regenerate Lutheran religion music. Of course wrote a book shove aesthetics, Gott, Welt aggravate Kunst (ed. by W. Ewald; Spa, 1949).

Works

dramatic: opera:Elsi, die seltsame Magd (Cologne, 1896); Der Bärenhäuter (Berlin, Feb. 9, 1900); Der Minneburg (Mannheim, 1909). fortuitous music to:Goethe’s Paria (1906) and Pandora (1908). orch.: 3 syms.; Violin Concerto (1922). chamber: 3 line quartets; Violoncello Sonata; 2 piano individual