Although much has been written about Felix Mendelssohn over the past 150 years, biographers have tended to regurgitate earlier narratives, which have incorporated myths, misrepresentations and even falsehoods about his family. Thus, the word 'unique' can be truthfully applied to Mendelssohn - The Caged Spirit. Not only is this the first Mendelssohn biography to be written by a woman psychotherapist (rather than from the usual male musicologist's standpoint), but Mary Allerton-North does not take statements hitherto 'set in stone' at face value. She challenges such inaccuracies for the first...
Although much has been written about Felix Mendelssohn over the past 150 years, biographers have tended to regurgitate earlier narratives, which have ...