THE MENDELSSOHN CENTENARY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10065, 5 February 1909, Page 4

THE MENDELSSOHN CENTENARY.

JB? Ei/ectbic Telegraph.—Copyright.] (Per Press Association.) Received February 4, at 9.50 p.m. London, February. 4. The Mendelssohn centenary was celebrated in many. English cities. [Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was born on February 3rd, 1809—a short time before Napoleon's troops seized the city of Hamburg after the battle of Jena. He was - the son "of Abraham MendelssohnBartholdy, the eminent banker, and grandson, of Moses Mendelssohn, the philosopher, who was stated to be "wise as Socrates." At seven Mendelssohn was studying counterpoint under Zelter, of whom it has been said "when Zelter became Mendelssohn's master he merely put fish into water and let it swim exactly as it pleased." At 10 Mendelssohn appeared publicly as a pianist, at 13 he had composed 60 pieces, and was fairly launched upon his great career. At the age of nine he began to write musical compositions of all lands, and in 1824 the first of these—three quartets for the piano—was published, being shortly after followed by the overture to the "Midsummer Nights Dream." The oratorio St. Paul was produced at the Birmingham Festival in 1837, and created a furore. The "Elijah," his greatest oratorio, upon which he labored for nine years, was also produced at the Birmingham Festival in 1846. Mendelssohn's works embrace every department of the musician's art, and he is facile princeps in the brighter and more elegant school of musical activity. He died at Leipsic in 1847.]