Beschrijving

Offers a revisionist account of Felix Mendelssohn’s relationship to his Jewish roots. Challenging the notion that Mendelssohn’s identity was strongly informed by a sense of Jewishness, a view that came into currency after World War II, this book argues Mendelssohn consciously attempted to distance himself from his Jewish heritage.

Most scholars since World War Two have assumed that composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847) maintained a strong attachment to Judaism throughout his lifetime. As these commentators have rightly noted, Mendelssohn was born Jewish and not converted to Protestantism until age seven, his grandfather was the famous Jewish reformer and philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and his music was banned by the Nazis, who clearly viewed him as a Jew. Such facts tell only part of the story, however. Through a mix of cultural analysis, biographical study, and a close examination of the libretto drafts of Mendelssohn’s sacred works, The Price of Assimilation provides dramatic new answers to the so-called \