Peter Mercer-Taylor (Editor) - The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn

The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn

The Companion to Mendelssohn is written by leading scholars in the field. In fourteen chapters they explore the life, work, and reception of a composer-performer once thought uniquely untroubled in life and art alike, but who is now broadly understood as one of the nineteenth centurys most deeply problematic musical figures. The first section of the volume considers issues of biography, with chapters dedicated to Mendelssohns role in the emergence of Europes modern musical institutions, to the persistent tensions of his German-Jewish identity, and to his close but enigmatic relationship with his gifted older sister, Fanny. The following nine essays survey Mendelssohns expansive and multi-faceted musical output, marked as it was by successes in almost every contemporary musical genre outside of opera. The volumes two closing essays confront, in turn, the turbulent course of Mendelssohns posthumous reception and some of the challenges his music continues to pose for modern performers.

PETER MERCER-TAYLOR is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Minnesota School of Music. He is the author of The Life of Mendelssohn (Cambridge, 2000) and has published in a number of journals including The Journal of Musicology and Popular Music .

Cambridge Companions to Music

Topics

The Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music

Edited by Allan Moore

The Cambridge Companion to Conducting

Edited by Jos Antonio Bowen

The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera

Edited by David Charlton

The Cambridge Companion to Jazz

Edited by Mervyn Cooke and David Horn

The Cambridge Companion to the Musical

Edited by William Everett and Paul Laird

The Cambridge Companion to the Orchestra

Edited by Colin Lawson

The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock

Edited by Simon Frith, Will Straw and John Street

The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet

Edited by Robin Stowell

Composers

The Cambridge Companion to Bach

Edited by John Butt

The Cambridge Companion to Bartk

Edited by Amanda Bayley

The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven

Edited by Glenn Stanley

The Cambridge Companion to Berg

Edited by Anthony Pople

The Cambridge Companion to Berlioz

Edited by Peter Bloom

The Cambridge Companion to Brahms

Edited by Michael Musgrave

The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten

Edited by Mervyn Cooke

The Cambridge Companion to Bruckner

Edited by John Williamson

The Cambridge Companion to John Cage

Edited by David Nicholls

The Cambridge Companion to Chopin

Edited by Jim Samson

The Cambridge Companion to Debussy

Edited by Simon Trezise

The Cambridge Companion to Elgar

Edited by Daniel Grimley and Julian Rushton

The Cambridge Companion to Handel

Edited by Donald Burrows

The Cambridge Companion to Liszt

Edited by Kenneth Hamilton

The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn

Edited by Peter Mercer-Taylor

The Cambridge Companion to Mozart

Edited by Simon P. Keefe

The Cambridge Companion to Ravel

Edited by Deborah Mawer

The Cambridge Companion to Rossini

Edited by Emanuele Senici

The Cambridge Companion to Schubert

Edited by Christopher Gibbs

The Cambridge Companion to Sibelius

Edited by Daniel Grimley

The Cambridge Companion to Verdi

Edited by Scott L. Balthazar

Instruments

The Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments

Edited by Trevor Herbert and John Wallace

The Cambridge Companion to the Cello

Edited by Robin Stowell

The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet

Edited by Colin Lawson

The Cambridge Companion to the Guitar

Edited by Victor Coelho

The Cambridge Companion to the Organ

Edited by Nicholas Thistlethwaite and Geoffrey Webber

The Cambridge Companion to the Piano

Edited by David Rowland

The Cambridge Companion to the Recorder

Edited by John Mansfield Thomson

The Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone

Edited by Richard Ingham

The Cambridge Companion to Singing

Edited by John Potter

The Cambridge Companion to the Violin

Edited by Robin Stowell

............

EDITED BY
Peter Mercer-Taylor

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 100114211, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
Ruiz de Alarcn 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa

http://www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521826037

Cambridge University Press 2004

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2004

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeface Minion 10.75/14 pt. System

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 521 82603 9 hardback
ISBN 0 521 53342 2 paperback

Leon Botstein is President and Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Bard College. He is the author of Judentum und Modernitt and Jeffersons Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture . He is also the editor of The Compleat Brahms and The Musical Quarterly , as well as music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra. He has recorded works by, among others, Szymanowski, Hartmann, Bruch, Toch, Dohnnyi, Bruckner, Glire, Reger, Richard Strauss, and Mendelssohn for Telarc, CRI, Koch, Arabesque, and New World Records.

John Michael Cooper is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of North Texas. He is the author of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: A Guide to Research and Mendelssohns Italian Symphony , and editor, with Julie D. Prandi, of The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History