Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy

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Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy, drawn by her son-in-law Wilhelm Hensel (1823)

Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy , née Lea Salomon (* March 15, 1777 in Berlin ; † December 12, 1842 ibid), married to the banker and cultural promoter Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy , was the mother of the composer Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel , the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , the singer and Salonnière Rebecka Mendelssohn Dirichlet and the banker and cellist Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy . As a knowledgeable pianist, she played a key role in the education of her four musically gifted children. She got involved in new performances of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and his sons and advocated the dissemination of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven and supported musicians who played their works. As a music and culture sponsor, she was the focus of a musical salon in Berlin, which had developed from the domestic musical life of the Mendelssohn family since 1819 and gained significantly in importance again from 1831 through the activities of Fanny Hensel.

Life

Lea Mendelssohn was born on March 15, 1777 as the third of four children of Levin Jakob Salomon (1738–1783) and Bella Salomon, b. Itzig (1749–1824) born in Berlin. Her mother was the daughter of the Royal Prussian court factor Daniel Itzig (1723–1799) and his wife Miriam, b. Wulff (1727–1788) grew up in a very musical house. Like her mother Bella, Lea probably received piano lessons from the composer Johann Philipp Kirnberger . It can be assumed that she was a very good pianist and an outstanding Bach expert. In 1804 Lea Salomon married the banker Abraham Mendelssohn (1776–1835), son of the Berlin Jewish enlightener Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) and his wife Fromet , b. Gugenheim (1737-1812). She had four children with Abraham Mendelssohn: Fanny later married. Hensel (1805–1847), Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847), Rebecka later married. Dirichlet (1811–1858) and Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1812–1874), who brought them up according to a liberal ethic in the spirit of the Enlightenment. In 1816 their children were baptized Christian. She and her husband were baptized in 1822 and converted to Protestantism . Based on Lea's brother, the diplomat Jakob Ludwig Salomon Bartholdy , who was baptized in 1805 , they adopted the name Bartholdy .

Lea Mendelssohn lived in Hamburg until 1811 after her marriage. She developed her effect as a promoter of culture and music after her return to her hometown Berlin in 1811. Raised in the tradition of the Bach worship of the Itzig family , she represented a "classical" aesthetic based on the content of music, which, based on the tried and tested, New developed. She therefore campaigned particularly for the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven and supported musicians who disseminated their works. As the first piano teacher of her musically gifted two oldest children, Fanny and Felix, she determined their future piano teachers with great knowledge and in accordance with her own aesthetic convictions.

The Mendelssohn house, Leipziger Strasse 3 in Berlin, before 1899

From 1819, under her direction, the so-called “musical winter evenings” and the family tradition of celebrating birthdays with music developed into larger musical events, such as soirées , in the Mendelssohn's house. From 1821 the "Sunday music" was also introduced. They gave the son Felix the opportunity to perform his Singspiele, symphonies and concerts together with the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven with the Royal Court Orchestra. The musical experiences and events in the Mendelssohn's house found their way into Lea Mendelssohn's extensive correspondence with her cousin Henriette von Pereira-Arnstein (1780–1859), which also influenced her musical life in Vienna.

In 1825 the family had moved to the former Reckesche Palais at Leipziger Strasse 3 in Berlin, an address that, from 1831, should become the epitome of musical conviviality in Berlin through the activities of their daughter Fanny. Lea Mendelssohn also continued to organize musical societies in her own rooms.

Grave of Lea and Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Berlin-Kreuzberg

Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy died in Berlin in 1842 at the age of 65. She was buried next to her husband Abraham, who had died seven years earlier, in the Trinity Cemetery I in front of the Hallesches Tor . Two tall, flat steles serve as grave markers in the lattice grave. The hereditary burial of Hensel / Mendelssohn Bartholdy, in which their children Fanny and Felix are buried, and the grave of their son Paul are also nearby. Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy's final resting place (grave location DV1-1-1) was dedicated to the State of Berlin as an honorary grave from 1952 to 2015 .

Act

“Felix's mother, with rare dexterity, formed the center of this often moving circle. Apparently without interference, she knew how to stimulate everyone in a binding manner and allow them to do their thing until it became necessary to steer the conversation or to dampen it and it was important to bring it into a new flow with skill. "

- Eduard Devrient

With her musical societies and because of her family network in European metropolises, Lea Mendelssohn worked to a large extent to promote music and culture as well as to educate the public and canon. Traveling artists received support through their contacts in Berlin and Vienna, which was very important for the development of modern public concerts. Lea Mendelssohn had closely linked her children's musical education with the private-public promotion of culture in her house. Their correspondence about the musical societies from 1819 to 1825 provides information about their ideal of a comprehensive artistic and literary education. The domestic musical life she organized was characterized by the combination of the highest artistic level and a playful approach, with which she took up and practiced the modern educational practices of her time.

literature

Autograph

  • Letters from Lea Mendelssohn to her son Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, from the years 1821 to 1842 in the "Green Books", Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. MDM b. 4 and d. 28 ff.
  • Letters from Lea Mendelssohn to her cousin Henriette von Pereira Arnstein from the years 1804–1842, Berlin State Library, Prussian Cultural Heritage, House 1, MA Nachl. 15 (including some sections and individual letters from Abraham Mendelssohn, Fanny Hensel and Rebecka Dirichlet)

Older source editions

  • Eduard Devrient: My memories of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and his letters to me . JJ Weber, Leipzig 1869, 3rd edition 1891
  • Sebastian Hensel (ed.): The Mendelssohn family 1729–1847 , after letters and diaries ed. by Sebastian Hensel. 2 volumes. 2nd Edition. Behr, Berlin 1880
  • Sebastian Hensel: A life picture from Germany's apprenticeship years . B. Behr, Berlin 1903

Recent source editions

  • Wolfgang Dinglinger, Rudolf Elvers (eds.): Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy, "Ewig die Deine", letters to Henriette von Pereira-Arnstein . 2 volumes. Wehrhahn, Hanover 2010
  • Hans-Günter Klein, Rudolf Elvers (ed.): Fanny Hensel, diaries . Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden / Leipzig / Paris 2002
  • Hans-Günter Klein: "... one of our most witty compatriots". Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy's letters to Carl Gustav von Brinkmann from 1811–1822 . In: Yearbook of the State Institute for Music Research, Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin . Schott, Mainz [a. a.] 2005, pp. 243-266.

Secondary literature

  • Cornelia Bartsch : “The center of this often moving circle”, Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy . In: Irina Hundt (ed.): From the salon to the barricade. Women of the Heine period . Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, pp. 61–73
  • Cornelia Bartsch: Fanny Hensel: Music as Correspondence . Furore, Kassel 2007
  • Wolfgang Dinglinger: Sunday music with Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy . In: Hans-Günter Klein (Ed.): The music events at the Mendelssohns - A musical salon? The presentations of the symposium on September 2nd, 2006 in Leipzig (= Leipzig - Music and City - Studies and Documents, Volume 2). Mendelssohn House, Leipzig 2006, pp. 35–47
  • Irina Hundt, Till Gerrit Waidelich: “In the hospitable Mendelsohn home”. Memories of the Mendelssohn Salon by Helmina von Chézy . In: Schubert Perspektiven , Volume 5, Issue 1. Steiner, Stuttgart 2005, pp. 92-100
  • Thomas Lackmann: My father's son: Biographical study of Abraham Mendelssohn . Wallstein, Göttingen 2007
  • Cécile Lowenthal-Hensel : News about Leipziger Strasse Drei . In: Mendelssohn Studies , Volume VII, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, pp. 141–151
  • Cécile Lowenthal-Hensel : With organ tone and bim, wedding in Mendelssohn's house . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 10, 1999, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 4–11 ( luise-berlin.de ).

Novels

  • Härtling, Peter : Dearest fennel! Cologne 2011; Biographical novel about Fanny Hensel

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. here and below: Cornelia Bartsch: Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy . MUGI - Music and Gender on the Internet, 2008, project of the Hamburg University of Music and Theater ; here: biography
  2. ↑ Cécile Lowenthal-Hensel : With organ tone and bim, wedding in Mendelssohn's house . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 10, 1999, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 4–11 ( luise-berlin.de ).
  3. ↑ Thomas Lackmann: The son of my father: Biographical study on Abraham Mendelssohn . Wallstein, Göttingen 2007, p. 264 f.
  4. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , pp. 226–227.
  5. ↑ Eduard Devrient: My memories of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and his letters to me . JJ Weber, Leipzig 1869, 3rd edition 1891, p. 35, quoted by Cornelia Bartsch: Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy . MUGI - Music and Gender on the Internet, 2008, project of the Hamburg University of Music and Theater
  6. ↑ Cornelia Bartsch: Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy . MUGI - Music and Gender on the Internet, 2008, project of the Hamburg University of Music and Theater ; here: profile
  7. ↑ Cornelia Bartsch: Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy . MUGI - Music and Gender on the Internet, 2008, project of the Hamburg University of Music and Theater ; extensive bibliography here
personal data
SURNAME Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Lea
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mendelssohn, Lea; Salomon, Lea (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mother of the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1777
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1842
Place of death Berlin