 In the immediate wake of Mendelssohn 's death , he was mourned both in Germany and England . However , the conservative strain in Mendelssohn , which set him apart from some of his more flamboyant contemporaries , bred a corollary condescension amongst some of them toward his music . Mendelssohn 's relations with Berlioz , Liszt and others had been uneasy and equivocal . Listeners who had raised questions about Mendelssohn 's talent included Heinrich Heine , who wrote in 1836 after hearing the oratorio St. Paul that his work was " characterized by a great , strict , very serious seriousness , a determined , almost importunate tendency to follow classical models , the finest , cleverest calculation , sharp intelligence and , finally , complete lack of naïveté . But is there in art any originality of genius without naïveté ? " 
