Our earlier post introduced Felix Mendelssohn through anecdotes. Below are five key points summing up Felix Mendelssohn’s important legacy.

We summed up below the excellent WETA Classical’s Classical Breakdown podcast featuring hosts John Banther and James Jacobs. You can listen to the full podcast by clicking on the image at the end of this email.

They explain why Felix Mendelssohn was a highly influential 19th-century composer, conductor, and visionary who fundamentally shaped the modern classical music industry. Also why Mendelssohn’s chamber music was better than his symphonies.

The discussion centers around five major phases of his life and career:

• The Child Prodigy: Born into a wealthy and highly educated family, Mendelssohn was recognized by contemporaries—including the poet Goethe—as an adult-like genius in a child’s body. He wrote masterpiece-level works as a teenager, such as his String Symphonies, Octet for Strings, and the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He was also a legendary sight-reader who could effortlessly play messy handwritten manuscripts by Mozart and Beethoven.

• Reviving J.S. Bach: At just 20 years old, Mendelssohn organized, arranged, and conducted a historic performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. This single event rescued Bach’s vocal music from historical obscurity and sparked a global, long-lasting Bach revival.

• The Industry Inventor in Leipzig: While serving as the music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mendelssohn essentially invented the modern “classical music concert format” by blending old historical masterpieces with newly composed music. He was also a pioneer of modern orchestral conducting and popularized the use of the heavy conducting baton.

• Impact on Britain: Mendelssohn fell in love with British culture and made ten (10) exhausting, highly successful trips to the region. He socialized with Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria, and heavily influenced British art and choral traditions by premiering his massive, dramatic English-language oratorio, Elijah, in Birmingham in 1846.

• Death and Fluid Legacy: Driven by a frantic work ethic, Mendelssohn suffered from failing health and died from a series of strokes at age 38, just six months after his beloved sister Fanny passed away from the same genetic condition. His historical legacy has continuously shifted—ranging from being banned by the Nazis due to his Jewish heritage, to modern appreciation for his intentional focus on writing accessible, highly communicative music.