Musik und Ästhetik im Berlin Moses Mendelssohns

Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) stands not only for the new identity achieved by an 'enlightened' Jewish elite but also (as this volume documents for the first time) for a new approach to 'aesthetic education' and music. Mendelssohn himself took piano lessons from Kirnberger, a pupil of Bach's, while Sara Levy (nee Itzig) made her salon into a centre for the cultivation of Bach's heritage and numerous Berlin Jews took an active part in public performances even of such works as Handel's -Messiah- and Graun's -Tod Jesu-. The patent preference for 'ancient' and self-referential music in these circles permits the thesis that the Jewish minority in Berlin was centrally operative in preparing the ground for the idea of 'absolute music'."