Happy Birthday to Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy, (1777-1842)

Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Fanny and Felix’s mother, was hugely important in their musical lives. A talented pianist herself, she taught her Fanny and Felix piano in their early years, promoted new performances of music by J.S. Bach and his sons, as well as championing the works of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. As a music and cultural patron she was the center of a musical salon in Berlin (and indeed her daughter Rebecca went on to be a singer and saloniere herself), which grew out of the Mendelssohn family’s domestic musical life.