# The 1850 essay publicly attacks Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn as named Jewish composers Date: 1850 ## The fact The 1850 Judenthum essay names Giacomo Meyerbeer and Felix Mendelssohn as public problems of ‘Jewishness’ in music. It is one event. ## Context Rivalry can be aesthetic and can be ethnicised. Split 1850’s general theory onto the sibling essay row. [Richard Wagner](/people/richard-wagner)’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death. Meyerbeer had aided Wagner in Paris; Mendelssohn was already dead (1847). The essay converts professional rivalry into an ethnic-public brief. Polarisation of German music as a racialised field is the path, additional to the general minority-rights row. Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers date the row. ## Evidence and sources Britannica and the public-domain essay independently show the named attacks on Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn. Official or archival record: Britannica — Das Judentum in der Musik (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Das-Judentum-in-der-Musik; Encyclopaedia Britannica). ## Significance Ethnicising named colleagues in a music weekly polarised a profession into in- and out-groups. A named attack is not Bayreuth’s 1876 architecture. Ethnicising named colleagues in a music weekly polarised a profession into in- and out-groups. ## What is established and what is not Established: 1850 named attacks inside the essay. Not established: that Meyerbeer secretly ran Leipzig. What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions. The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit. Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Richard Wagner. What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date, signatory, or non-occurrence; a demonstrated forgery; or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of other causes. They are not a public rating. ## People - Richard Wagner: https://factrail.ai/people/richard-wagner ## Drivers - Political Polarization: https://factrail.ai/drivers/political-polarization ## Sources - https://doi.org/10.1017/ccol9780521642996 - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Das-Judentum-in-der-Musik ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-meyerbeer-attack