 Throughout his life Mendelssohn was wary of the more radical musical developments undertaken by some of his contemporaries . He was generally on friendly , if sometimes somewhat cool , terms with the likes of Hector Berlioz , Franz Liszt , and Giacomo Meyerbeer , but in his letters expresses his frank disapproval of their works , for example writing of Liszt that his compositions were " inferior to his playing , and [ … ] only calculated for virtuosos " ; of Berlioz 's overture Les francs @-@ juges " the orchestration is such a frightful muddle [ ... ] that one ought to wash one 's hands after handling one of his scores " ; and of Meyerbeer 's opera Robert le diable " I consider it ignoble " , calling its villain Bertram " a poor devil " . When his friend the composer Ferdinand Hiller suggested in conversation to Mendelssohn that he looked rather like Meyerbeer – they were actually distant cousins , both descendants of Rabbi Moses Isserlis – Mendelssohn was so upset that he immediately went to get a haircut to differentiate himself . 
