Description

During the first half of the 19th century, Leipzig rose alongside Vienna and London to one of the world’s leading music towns. Mainly, this was the result of the work of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy as a composer, as conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, and as founder of the Conservatory. His house was open to friends and colleagues – renowned guests who tell us of festive hours “at Mendelssohn’s”, of heartfelt gratitude of hospitality, stimulating conversation, and of his works. Their memories condense into a kaleidoscope of life in Leipzig and at the house of Mendelssohn around 1845.

In biographical sketches of famous or less famous visitors of the Mendelssohn family – especially, of course, of fellow artists (among others Hans Christian Andersen, Jenny Lind, Ignaz and Charlotte Moscheles, the Schumann’s, and Richard Wagner), but also of academics (as Johann Gustav Droysen), and friends (as Heinrich Brockhaus and his wife Pauline, Livia Frege, Robert von Keudell, and Samuel Rudolph Howard) Brigitte Richter is drawing an authentic image of the cordial openness in Mendelssohn’s house, of the interpersonal relationships among Mendelssohn’s relatives and friends, and of the natural worldliness of the composer and his Leipzig circle.

This volume is illustrated with portraits of the guests and with views of the Mendelssohn-House Leipzig. It is dedicated to Prof Dr h.c. Kurt Masur.

2011, 320 pages, hardcover, many coloured illustrations, index, 22 x 13 cm;
ISBN: 978-3-938533-39-0