3 February: Felix Mendelssohn

On this date in 1809 the German composer Felix Mendelssohn was born.

1. Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg. His father, Abraham, was a banker and came from a prominent Jewish family. He had renounced the faith, however, and brought his children up accordingly. Hence young Felix did not undergo any traditional Jewish rites of passage.
2. Mendelssohn began learning to play the Piano when he was six, and gave his first public performance at the age of nine. He started composing Music at 12, writing his first symphony at 15. His String Octet in E-flat major was written when he was 16.
3. As a youngster, he wasn’t just good at music. Young Felix excelled as a painter, poet, athlete and linguist as well.
4. His letters show he was witty and good with words, and he’d include sketches and cartoons in his correspondence.
5. He travelled a fair bit. During the 1830s he visited Vienna, Florence, Milan, Rome, Naples and Britain.
6. In fact, he visited Britain ten times, and was particularly taken with Scotland. His Scottish Symphony and the Hebrides Overture were inspired by his visits there. In 1829, Mendelssohn took a trip to the Scottish Island of Staffa and Fingal’s Cave, and it impressed him so much that he began writing music inspired by it immediately. He sent a postcard to his sister with the first few bars of the Hebrides Overture written on it.
7. Queen Victoria was a big fan. She described Mendelssohn as 'the greatest musical genius since Mozart' and 'the most amiable man’.
8. Not everyone shared her opinion, though. Other composers nicknamed him "discontented Polish count" because they found him to be somewhat aloof, and sometimes lost his temper.
9. His marriage was a happy one. He married Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud, the daughter of a French clergyman and they had five children.
10. He was just 38 when he died from a stroke. He’d suffered several strokes and travelling exhausted him. He might have realised he wasn’t long for this world when he wrote to a friend saying that he saw death as a place ‘where it is to be hoped there is still music, but no more sorrow or partings’. Cécile died less than six years after her husband.

Character birthday

Dymo: aka Max Jordan, a protege of the super villain Professor Power. He is a power armour wearer which allows him to fly, shoot energy bolts and create force fields. He appears in Tale of Two Sisters when he tries to form a relationship with Black Rose.

A Tale of Two Sisters

During a battle with supervillains, a horrific accident leaves the Warner family with no option but to believe their youngest daughter, Jessica, is dead. It doesn't occur to them that the bad guys could, or would, save her.

Jessica wakes up with no memory of who she is or how she came to be on a space station with two bionic legs, a bionic arm and a bionic eye. She is told her family abandoned her and is sent back to Earth with a mission - to kill them. While Jessica wants to kill her family, along with the twin boys who once rejected her, she knows what the Alliance of Supervillains are asking her to do is a suicide mission. She decides to get her revenge in her own way.

As Jessica puts the first part of her revenge plan in motion, she finds herself with an agonising decision to make. Before she can decide, the Alliance come for her, determined to make her do their bidding. This time, it's the Alliance who leave her, crippled and at the mercy of the Warner family, who have no idea who the Alliance's Black Rose really is.

Jessica finds herself having to re-think her decisions in light of what she now learns about her family, the Alliance, the twins, and herself. It would appear the Alliance have left her with an unwanted and permanent reminder of her time with them. Or have they?

Jessica's older sister, Jill, knows her destiny is to be a doctor and specialise in bionics and genetic variant medicine. She is also hopelessly in love with Christopher, Crown Prince of Galorvia. Can their romance survive the lies Christopher told her when they were both at school, an unplanned pregnancy and Sophie, the wannabe princess who comes between them?

Available on Amazon

Paperback

E-book