Mendelssohn, The Nazis and Me

Originally broadcast on BBC, Sheila Hayman's documentary brings a deeply personal approach to the retelling of the life story of German composer Felix Mendelssohn, Hayman's great-great-great-great-uncle. While detailing his career and artistic achievements, Hayman offers a simultaneous family history of how Mendelssohn's 1930s-era descendants ran up against Nazi purity laws relating to genealogy. Although born into a prominent Jewish family, Mendelssohn was baptized a Lutheran at the age of seven and identified himself as a Protestant throughout his life (his descendants were all Protestants, and some were unaware of their Jewish heritage). Hayman details how Mendelssohn's attitudes toward Jewish-Gentile relations seemed contradictory: although he spoke for tolerance, Mendelssohn's oratorios Saint Paul and Elijah feature jolting passages that could be perceived as being negative toward Jews of the biblical era. However, German anti-Semites—beginning with fellow composer Richard Wagner—identified Mendelssohn as Jewish, and by the time of the Nazi ascendancy his music was banned from public performance except in concerts under the Kulturbund, a cultural apartheid policy designed solely for German Jewish audiences. In any case, Mendelssohn's glorious music continued to transcend artificial boundaries designed to separate people, particularly A Midsummer's Night Dream, which was performed in Nazi Germany despite official bans. An interesting combination of personal history, musical biography, and social, religious, and political commentary, this documentary is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)