Mendelssohn : a life in music /

Todd (musicology, Duke Univ.; editor, Schumann and His World) profiles composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-47) in this magisterial, exhaustively documented book likely to become the standard biography. He begins with the composer's forebears, detailing their careers and, in some cases, conversion stories from Judaism to various more socially acceptable (for that era) Christian faiths. He then moves on to Mendelssohn's youth, touring with older sister Fanny, a virtuoso and composer in her own right. Throughout, Todd interweaves his subject's biographical journey with his performing and compositional activities on an almost daily schedule, exploring in-depth his studies of and dealings with the vagaries of music publishing, conducting assignments, championing of the works of earlier masters such as Bach, and relations with other musicians. The author's musical analysis is clear to the layperson yet includes enough specifics to be useful to serious musicians, while his literate style helps to create an organic whole. Clive Brown's recent A Portrait of Mendelssohn complements Todd's book by focusing on more extensive excerpts from contemporary sources touched on here. One has to reach back to Eric Werner's treatise Mendelssohn: A New Image of the Composer and His Age (1963) for a title of comparable substance, but, of course, Todd has the benefit of more than 40 additional years of available scholarship. Highly recommended for all libraries.-Barry Zaslow, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.