Born in Hamburg on February 3, 1809, Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
was the grandson of Moses Mendelssohn, a Jewish Enlightenment philosopher. He
grew up in Berlin, where his father, a banker who had converted to
Protestantism, had settled with his wife and their four children. In 1812, he
added the name Bartholdy to the family surname as a sign of his break with the
Jewish religion. Like his elder sister Fanny (born 1805), Felix Mendelssohn
showed an early aptitude for music, and after their mother's first piano
lessons, the children took advantage of a stay in Paris i...