Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Kongress-Bericht Berlin 1994 (review)

Abstract

The year 1997 marked the sesquicentennial of the deaths of Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. The event was commemorated by a few important conferences and festivals, and the year also witnessed the publication of several important critical editions of Felix's sacred works by Carus-Verlag (Stuttgart) and the appearance of the tenth volume of Mendelssohn-Studien, a Berlin-based journal committed to scholarly explorations of all aspects of the illustrious family's history; yet scholars produced surprisingly few studies devoted to the two siblings. The most important individual contributions to the literature were Peter Ward Jones's extensively annotated and lavishly illustrated edition of Felix and Cécile Mendelssohn's honeymoon diaries (The Mendelssohns on Honeymoon: The 1837 Diary of Felix and Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy, together with Letters to Their Families [Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997]), a new edition of the composer's celebrated Familienbriefe (Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Briefe, ed. Beatrix Borchard, 2 vols. [Potsdam: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 1997]), an important compilation of contemporary memoirs (Roger Nichols, Mendelssohn Remembered [London: Faber and Faber, 1997]), and a useful study of the women in Felix's life (Brigitte Richter, Frauen um Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy [Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1997]).