 Such opinions are evidence of how a more nuanced appreciation of Mendelssohn's work has developed over the last 50 years, together with the publication of a number of modern biographies placing his achievements in context. Mercer-Taylor comments on the irony that "this broad-based reevaluation of Mendelssohn's music is made possible, in part, by a general disintegration of the idea of a musical canon", an idea which Mendelssohn "as a conductor, pianist and scholar" had done so much to establish.
