Celebrating Mendelssohn and the Organ

Shortly after noon today I joined a scattering of devotees to enjoy a brief recital by four organ students from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. The venue was the 3,200-seat Indiana University Auditorium; the instrument, a massive 4,543-pipe organ built in 1889. Originally called the Roosevelt organ for builder Hilborne L. Roosevelt, it served the Auditorium Theater in Chicago until the 1940s, when it was sold to William H. Barnes of Evanston, Illinois. Barnes donated it to IU, where it was installed in the Auditorium in 1944.

Among the composers whose works were performed during the recital, the name Felix Mendelssohn stood out — for good reason. This year is the 200th anniversary year of the composer.

Felix Mendelssohn, as he is known in English-speaking countries, was born February 3, 1809, in Hamburg, Germany. His full name was Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Though recognized as a prodigy, his parents did not capitalize on his talent but allowed him to develop. He was well received as a composer, conductor, and soloist; and his fame spread across Europe during the Romantic Era.

His tastes in music were rather conservative. In fact, he founded a conservatory at Leipzig, which became a bastion of anti-radicalism. Mendelssohn composed many and varied works, including symphonies, concerti, oratorios, and piano, organ, and chamber music. Mendelssohn played and composed for the organ from the time he was eleven years old. His primary organ works are Three Preludes and Fugues, Op. 37 (1837), and Six Sonatas, Op. 65 (1845).

Mendelssohn died young, at age thirty-eight, on November 4, 1847. His body of work is thus all the more remarkable for having been produced over such a relatively short life span.

The Bloomington, Indiana, chapter of the American Guild of Organists has organized a number of celebratory recitals that will take place locally, including a “progressive” concert called “Mendelssohn on the Move.” Organ students will perform in a succession of three churches on the evening of November 4, 2009 — exactly 162 years after the composer’s death.