ABSTRACT
In Felix Mendelssohn's time classicism was merely a component of higher education and culture, approached from without, as was the art of classical antiquity. "Classicism," inclusive of the neoclassical movements in architecture and the visual arts, provided the composer in his formative years with criteria for judging works of music and the function of music in society; therefore, neoclassicism as an ideology informed the self-image of a composer. The effort to reconcile Mendelssohn with early Romanticism, a "new mentality" that sought to come to terms with "classic form," continues to frame the scholarly debate. Before connecting Moses Mendelssohn's views on art and music to the development of Felix Mendelssohn's aesthetic credo, it is important to acknowledge the role that neoclassicism played among Jews in the two generations before Felix, those of Moses and Abraham Mendelssohn. Emancipation and recognition of the rights of Jews outside the ghetto coincided with the rise of aesthetic neoclassicism in Germany.
