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  • Chapter 32 - Felix Mendelssohn’s Reception in His Lifetime

  • from Part VI - Reception and Legacies
  • Edited by Thomas Schmidt, University of Manchester, Benedict Taylor, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn in Context
    Published online:
    19 December 2025
    Print publication:
    08 January 2026, pp 260-267

  • Summary

    Modern scholarship has in general portrayed Mendelssohn as a composer held in high regard during his lifetime but posthumously downgraded. This chapter presents a more complex picture, arguing that his reception during his life moves through three distinct phases. It examines the themes present in the earliest reviews of his works (1824–9) revealing how German reviewers emphasised the young composer’s dependence on models. In contrast, English reviewers from the start acclaimed him as one of the leading composers of the age. It then explores the upturn in Mendelssohn’s critical fortunes in the 1830s and responses to key works such as the Piano Concerto in G minor and St Paul. It concludes by exploring negative assessments by Hegelian critics such as Franz Brendel in the 1840s, comparing Mendelssohn’s mixed reception in Germany with the continuing effusive praise he received from English critics such as George Macfarren.