An early Grove's Dictionary entry on Felix Mendelssohn was criticized for its slighting tone. Given this history, it is curious that the present New Grove entry on Mendelssohn concludes with the statement that if Mendelssohn had perhaps missed "true greatness," he only missed it "by a hair."

While it is encouraging that, despite concerns about subjectivity, there is still room for criticism by notable scholars in a New Grove entry, one wonders if this was the best that the editors might have come up with in the case of Mendelssohn. Critical statements made in the New Grove do imply, to the extent possible given individual authorship, a sense of representative authority.

Does this statement about Mendelssohn meet this criterion? Would Ferruccio Busoni's early twentieth century assertions that Mendelssohn was "a master of undisputed greatness" and "an heir to Mozart" be widely considered today to be radical (or even merely vagarious) thoughts?