es of light works
for piano, about 600 songs, nine symphonies, of which two are among the
greatest we have, one opera, several masses, and a large number of
compositions for chamber music.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY.

Born February 3, 1809, at Hamburg.
Died November 4, 1847, at Leipsic.

He was the nephew of the celebrated Jewish philosopher and reformer,
Moses Mendelssohn, and a son of the well-known banker, Abraham
Mendelssohn.

The family was Israelitish, but Felix Mendelssohn was brought up a
Lutheran. The boy was of a very amiable and thoughtful disposition,
and was well instructed in music from his earliest years, his principal
teacher having been the celebrated theorist, Zelter. His first
appearance in concert was made at the age of nine, in the piano part of
a trio by Wolf. A year later he appeared as a singer. His
acquaintance with the orchestra commenced very early. There was a
small orchestra which met at his father's house on Sunday afternoons,
and by this means the compositions of the boy were tried and he himself
acquired his experience as a director. His activity as a composer
commenced about 1820. In this year he wrote a violin sonata and two
clavier sonatas, a little cantata, and an operetta. In 1821 Zelter
brought him to the great poet Goethe, who heard his music and conversed
with the lad with great interest. The friendship with Goethe continued
for many years. In one of his letters Mendelssohn tells of having
visited the poet and having had a long conversation with him, in which
the poet had given an account of Hegel's lectures on esthetics, which
Mendelssohn had heard that winter in Berlin, and in which Goethe was
very much interested on account of the novelty of the ideas presented.
The first of the important compositions of Mendelssohn to be published
and played was the overture to the "Midsummer Night's Dream," which was
written in 1826 and played immediately. He seems to have worked this
out upon the piano, improvising it piece by piece as he became excited
in reading Shakspere's comedy. This overture is of most complete
mastery in its working out and of thorough originality, and scarcely
anything of his later works surpasses it in merit as a finished
composition for orchestra.

It was largely through Mendelssohn's influence that the "St. Matthew
Passion" of Bach was brought out and given entire in Berlin, in 1829,
just one hundred years after its first production in