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Article: Mendelssohn: A Life in Music.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- July 1, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Mendelssohn: A Life in Music. R. Larry Todd. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxix + 683 pages. ISBN 0-19-511043-9. This biography, published by O.U.P. New York, seeks to give readers a balanced view of a composer whose fate has varied enormously over the years. To some he was a musical genius equal to Mozart; to others, his music was marked by 'a proclivity toward the saccharine ... [and] revealed a sentimental, effeminate nature'. That great genius, George Bernard Shaw, denounced his 'kid glove gentility' and defended those who attacked him as a Jew by race if not by faith (he was a ...