RICHARD WAGNER'S DESTRUCTION OF
FELIX MENDELSSOHN - A BRIEF OVERVIEW

In the 1840s, while Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was enjoying his years at the zenith of his fame, influence and authority over the Central European music and cultural scene, there was a composer four years younger than he who had not yet reached the high plateau destined for him. This man was Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Mendelssohn and Wagner interacted quite a few times during these years, and the experiences were not all favorable. Their respective visions as to the future course of German music differed greatly. Wagner, the opera composer, saw his medium as the new direction, and with it the ability to nurture and promote his belief in pan-Germanic nationalism. Mendelssohn, a loyal German, but not a nationalist, envisioned a music world led by chamber music, choral music and oratorios, and the symphony orchestra.

Felix Mendelssohn succeeded in having Europe stay the course he envisioned. But soon after his death the German Revolution took place, and nationalism and racism came to the fore.   Richard Wagner suddenly had a voice which the nation listened to, and he used it to great effect in his operatic writing.  

He also used it in prose. In the early 1850s, Richard Wagner wrote a pamphlet entitled Judaism in Music , which would subsequently be published as a book after the text was expanded.   The central focus for Wagner in this book was to explain the reasons why Jews were a detriment to the arts, and why they should not be accepted by Germany.

Felix Mendelssohn, still a towering musical figure in Europe a few years after his death, became a primary example used by Wagner in his argumentation against the Jewish people. " . . . Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization." It did not matter to Wagner that the Jewish-born Mendelssohn had been converted to Christianity as a small child. In great detail, he explained why 'they' were incapable of writing great music.   'Their blood' hindered it.

Wagner's book became a national 'best-seller', as it played right into the mindset of a majority of Germans. Within a matter of just a few more years, Felix Mendelssohn's music went from the most performed composer in Central Europe (by far the most performed), to almost not performed at all.   And, as is well documented in his letters and other writings over the rest of his long life, the great Germanic opera composer remained obsessed with denigrating the legacy of Felix Mendelssohn, right up to his own death in 1883.

There were a few Mendelssohn revivals over the decades, including one in the 1920s which was successful enough for the Nazis to add Mendelssohn's name to the lists of forbidden artists in Germany in 1936.  

The true Mendelssohn revival did not begin until the 1990s, but the legacy of this towering composer still bears the scars of what Richard Wagner and his followers taught the world for decades in the late 19th-Century. Most of what Felix Mendelssohn had become and had achieved was assailed and ultimately destroyed by racism, and perhaps by jealousy as well.

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