Mendelssohn

His birthday came and went in February without my mentioning it, but 2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn, one of the most important composers in the history of Western music, though not necessarily one of the greatest. (Though he was great, at his best.) Mendelssohn has many pieces that are still in the repertory today and wrote several melodies that are among the best-known of all time: the “Spring Song,” the Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His “Hebrides” overture famously became the theme for the Mynah Bird in Warner Brothers’ “Inki” cartoons.