In Case You Missed the Felix Mendelssohn Tribute Concert

It’s been a busy birthday week between Robert Burns (250 years young), Wilmer Valderrama (29), and the Iranian Revolution (30).But lest you forgot to mark your calendar amid all the parties, today, February 3, happens to be the big 200 for German composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Possessing a talent was once thought to put him in league with Beethoven and Bach, the composer has not been quite so feted in recent decades, though perhaps that will be rectified this year.

Washingtonians “celebrated” the musical great with implicitly faint praise, staging a “Mendelssohn on the Mall” concert at the same time on Sunday evening as the most watched television event in America.The New York Times has done them one better with an explanatory list of in-house critics’ favorite barn-burning symphonies and face-melting violin concertos of Mendelssohn’s.Pour a flute of bubbly and throw on some Die erste Walpurgisnacht in his honor.