A GENTLE CRITIC

Felix Mendelssohn had strong opinions, but he wasn’t the type to dunk on people for sport. One night he was at a performance of a Donizetti opera. Everyone around him knew Mendelssohn’s taste ran in a totally different direction, so they tried to flatter him by tearing Donizetti to shreds—loudly, competitively, and a little too eagerly.

After a while Mendelssohn couldn’t take the performative snobbery anymore. He stopped the pile‑on and said, basically: “I like it. And honestly? I’d have loved to have written music like this myself.”

It’s a perfect reminder that being a great composer doesn’t require being a mean critic.