The Music of Felix Mendelssohn Quiz

Answer: Elijah parts the sea

A woman brings her nearly dead son to Elijah, and he restores the son to consciousness through prayer. Then he challenges the priests of Baal to a competition. They call on Baal to send down fire, but he's a no-show. Elijah then prays to Yahweh, who delivers fire from Heaven. After the crowd turns against him, he becomes depressed and prays to God to take away his life.

Answer: Songs Without Words

The 48 "Songs Without Words" are among Mendelssohn's most popular compositions for solo piano. Most of them have popular titles, such as "Spring Song" and "Consolation," though only a few of the titles come from the composer. Just what is a song without words? Mendelssohn once wrote, "For my part, I do not believe that words suffice for such a task, and if they did I would no longer make any music."

Answer: "Midsummer Night's Dream" Overture

Mendelssohn was as much a child prodigy as Mozart. The "Midsummer Night's Dream" Overture is a masterwork; Mozart was still reaching toward full musical maturity at age 17.

Answer: The First Walpurgis Night

Based on a text by Goethe, "The First Walpurgis Night" takes the point of view of medieval pagans whose worship of Odin has been outlawed. To scare away the people coming to arrest them, they dress up as spooks and witches and carry pitchforks. It works, and they celebrate their freedom.

Answer: String Octet

Mendelssohn's Octet was one of the first chamber works for four violins, two violas, and two cellos. Spohr's first Double Quartet came earlier, but it treated the grouping as two antiphonal string quartets, while Mendelssohn's work treats the players as a unified group.

Answer: "St. Matthew Passion" by Bach

J. S. Bach wasn't totally forgotten in Mendelssohn's time, but he was considered a composer of dry stuff of interest only to dedicated connoisseurs and church choirs. Mendelssohn had the "St. Matthew Passion" performed in 1829, possibly its first public performance in a German concert hall in a hundred years. This triggered a wave of new interest in Bach's music.

Answer: Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

The tune for "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" comes from a cantata that Mendelssohn wrote, commemorating Gutenberg's printing press. The cantata has fallen into obscurity, but one of its tunes got a new life when it was put together with verses by Charles Wesley.

Answer: Robert Schumann

"Erinnerung," op. 68 no. 28, is one of the pieces in Robert Schumann's "Album for the Young." It is written in Mendelssohn's style. Schumann was a pallbearer at Mendelssohn's funeral.

Answer: Mendelssohn was Jewish.

Richard Wagner wasn't the full-blown Nazi some people make him out to be, but he was still a nasty bigot. He wrote an essay on "Judaism in Music," in which he argued that Jews like Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn were inherently unable to write first-rate music. Mendelssohn was born to a Jewish family that converted to Christianity when he was a small child, and he wrote several overtly Christian works, but in Wagner's view he was still tainted.

Answer: The death of his sister

Fanny Mendelssohn (Fanny Hensel after marriage) was a composer in her own right and a skilled pianist. She often gave Felix feedback on his compositions and may have invented the term "song without words." She died in 1847, and Felix died later in the same year.