However, he accomplished one of the greatest things ever done for music. The works of Bach and Handel had been so neglected that they were almost forgotten. He knew them well, and wanting others to love them as he did, he assembled a great chorus and gave Bach’s _Passion according to Saint Matthew_. This was the first performance since Bach’s death, and it brought these works back to us. Imagine Mendelssohn’s popularity and talent as a conductor to have been able to do this at the age of twenty! Then he traveled again, and after roaming through Italy, Switzerland and France, he went to London where he created a stir as pianist, composer and conductor. Besides his splendid education he had a winsome and attractive personality, and his success was very great. He made, in all, nine visits to England. Having been brought up in the Christian faith, he married the daughter of a French Protestant minister and had five children. They went to live in Germany and becoming conductor of the Leipsic Gewandhaus orchestra, he made the city the musical center of Germany. He founded the Leipsic Conservatory of Music (1843), where he gave his old teacher Moscheles an important post. This conservatory is well known here for many American musicians of the last generation were educated there. Mendelssohn conducted many festivals and he always aroused new interest in Bach, whom he presented at every opportunity. His _Saint Paul_ had success in Duesseldorf (1837), and during his last visit to England (1846), he gave at the Birmingham festival _Elijah_, second today in popularity only to Handel’s _Messiah_. When Mendelssohn returned to Leipsic, he showed traces of overwork and the death of his sister coming at the same time, made him unable to resist the strain. He died November 4, 1847, when only 38. His happy life shines through his music so full of beauty and sunshine. SCHUMANN—THE SUPREME POET Robert Schumann (1810–1856), a tower of beauty, strength, imagination and dramatic fervor even judged by 20th century standards, still thrills us as we recognize his genius. What a price he paid for his life filled with joys and griefs! We are grateful for the solidity of his building, his breadth of vision, the wonders of his imagination, the beauty of his poetic fancy, and above all, the vastness of his musical knowledge. A peak among the composers of the Romantic School, he has scaled the heights of dramatic fervor as he has touched the sun-flecked valleys. To him we owe the naming of pieces, and the feeling of emotion which the composer felt when he named them,—_The Happy Farmer_, _The Prophet Bird_, _The Rocking-Horse_, _End of the Song_, _The Child Falls Asleep_, etc.