A rich and colorful presentation of the life and genius of one of the happiest and most successful of musical composers, by a writer whose background of music and long affiliation with the Julliard Musical Foundation especially endows him to give this story ample charm and authenticity.

Of Felix Mendelssohn, Mr. Erskine says, "Mendelssohn is one of those great artists who have paid the penalty of immediate and wide success. His career, though short, was so dazzling that the musical world grew weary of admiring, began to attribute his masterpieces to facility rather than to extraordinary competence and genuine inspiration. Even today he is ranked lower than he deserves, and much of our debt to him has been forgotten.

"This biography is addressed to a generation which perhaps associates his name with little more than a violin concerto, a symphony, and the Songs Without Words — these being represented in popular thought chiefly by the much-mauled Spring Song. But thoughtful musicians are thoroughly aware of Mendelssohn's great worth, and this biography will convey if possible something of their point of view to those who are making Mendelssohn's acquaintance. He was a master, a virtuoso and composer, but he was also, to an extent that many of us do not realize, the friend and advocate of all great music in his own time or before, a pioneer in the modern appreciation of Johann Sebastian Bach, a standard-bearer of music appreciation in Germany, and by his noble character and generous conduct, a conferrer of dignity upon the whole musical profession.

"The generosity of his life and the song-like beauty of his art are portions of the human heritage which we cannot afford to lose."

From the dust jacket