Recently the Carmel Quartet, an excellent Israeli string quartet, gave a concert, with commentary by the violist, Yoel Greenberg, who is a professor of musicology as well as a fine performer. The concert consisted of two string quartets: one by Fanny Mendelssohn and the other by Felix, composed after her untimely and unexpected death. Yoel's commentary was so interesting to me that I started reading Mendelssohn and his World. I had long known that according to the late musicologist, Charles Rosen, Mendelssohn was the most gifted child prodigy in the history of Western music. By all accounts, Felix was a universal musical genius: composer, pianist, and conductor. He was also a gifted painter and knew a lot of languages. Fortunately for him, he was raised in a family that appreciated and encouraged his gifts, and was wealthy enough to provide him with every possible opportunity.
Reading about Mendelssohn's talents and intelligence, and his many accomplishments in a short life, I wonder why I bother playing music at all. But then I remind myself that Mendelssohn could not have done without the merely excellent musicians who performed his works. You don't have to be a genius to play violin in an orchestra, just very, very good. And, even more obviously, you don't have to be a genius to enjoy the music written and performed by geniuses (and merely excellent musicians).
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