Life &Times

MENDELSSOHN

1809

LIFE: Felix Mendelssohn is born on 3 February in Hamburg, the second child – after sister Fanny – of Abraham Mendelssohn, a prominent banker, and Lea Salomon. TIMES: The bloody Battle of Wagram brings a decisive success for Napoleon’s French Empire and its German allies in the War of the Fifth Coalition against Great Britain and the Austrian Empire.

1829

LIFE: He embarks on a lengthy tour of Great Britain where, as well as conducting his A Midsummer Night’s Dream in London, he pays a visit by boat to Fingal’s Cave in Scotland.

TIMES: In Vienna, the Armenian inventor Cyrill Demian takes out a patent for the accordion, an instrument that, uniquely, can play a whole chord by depressing just one key.

1841

LIFE: He accepts a wellpaid one-year post in Berlin, but regularly returns to Leipzig to conduct the Gewandhaus in works including his Scottish Symphony. TIMES: The German scientist Hugo Reinsch develops the Reinsch Test for detecting the presence of heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic in biological samples. His research proves invaluable to toxicologists.

1822

LIFE: During his family’s holiday to Switzerland, he meets the composers Spohr and Hiller and begins his Piano Quartet in C minor, which is published as his Op. 1 the next year. TIMES: The Hamburg banker Elisabeth Berenberg dies aged 72. The sole heiress of the Berenberg Bank, she was the only woman to serve as a partner in the company since its founding in 1590.

1835

LIFE: After two years as music director in Düsseldorf, he accepts the post of municipal director of music in Leipzig where he conducts the Gewandhaus orchestra in a series of 20 concerts a year.

TIMES: Hans Christian Andersen publishes the first and second instalments of his Fairy Tales Told for Children – First Collection, including stories such as ‘The Princess and the Pea’ and ‘Thumbelina’.

1847

LIFE: Six months after Fanny’s death from a stroke, he himself dies following a series of strokes. He is buried next to Fanny at Berlin’s Dreifaltigkeitskirche. TIMES: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels found the Communist League, the first political party of its type, in London. The pair subsequently write the Communist Manifesto on behalf of its members.