Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/273

MENDELSSOHN. brilliant interchange of art, science, and literature, Felix, even at this early date, was the prominent figure. It was now as it was all through his life. When he entered the room every one was anxious to speak to him. Women of double his age made love to him, and men, years afterwards, recollected the evenings they had spent with him, and treasured every word that fell from his lips. One who knew him well at this time, but afterwards broke with him, speaks of the separation as 'a draught of wormwood, the bitter taste of which remained for years.'

The latter half of August and the whole of September were passed in a tour with Magnus and Heydemann through the Harz mountains to Baden-Baden (where his amusing adventures must be read in his letters), and thence by Heidelberg, where he made the acquaintance of Thibaut and his old Italian music, to Frankfort. At Frankfort he saw Schelble and Hiller, and delighted them with his new A minor Quartet (op. 13)—not yet fully written down; and with the 'Midsummer Night's Dream' overture, which although a year old was still new to the world.

The annoyance about Camacho had vanished with the tour, and Felix could now treat the tory as a joke, and take off the principal persons concerned. The A minor Quartet was completed directly after his return home, and is dated 'Berlin, Oct. 27, 1827.' Of further compositions this year we know only of the beautiful fugue in E&#x266d; for strings (on his favourite old ecclesiastical subject), which since his death has been published as the 4th movement of op. 81. It is dated Berlin, Nov. 1. Also a 'Tu es Petrus' for choir and orchestra, written for Fanny's birthday (Nov. 14), and published as op. 111. A very comic 'Kinder-symphonie' for the Christmas home party, for the same orchestra as Haydn's, and a motet for 4 voices and small orchestra on the chorale 'Christe du Lamm Gottes,' are named by Fanny in a letter. Soon after this their circle sustained a loss in the departure of Klingemann, one of the cleverest and most genial of the set, to London as Secretary to the Hans [App. p.716 "Hanoverian"] Legation. During this winter Felix—incited thereto by a complaint of Schubring's, that Bach always seemed to him like an arithmetical exercise—formed a select choir of 16 voices, who met at his house on Saturday evenings, and at once began to practise the Passion. This was the seed which blossomed in the public performance of that great work a year later, and that again in the formation of the Bachgesellschaft, and the publication of the Grand Mass, and all the Church Cantatas and other works, which have proved such mines of wealth. Long and complicated as the Passion is, he must have known it by heart even at that early date; for among other anecdotes proving as much, Schubring, who may be implicitly believed, relates that one evening after accompanying one of the choruses at the piano without book, he said, 'at the 23rd bar the sopranos have C and not C sharp.'

March 1828 was occupied by the composition of a long cantata [App. p.716 "lyric poem—'lyrische Dictung'"] to words by Levezow, for the Tercentenary Festival of Albert Dürer, at the Singakademie at Berlin, on April 18. It was undertaken at the request of the Akademie der Künste, and is written for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra, and contains 15 numbers. The 'Trumpet Overture' preceded it in performance. Felix was not in love with his task, but as the work grew into shape and the rehearsals progressed, he became reconciled to it; the performance was good, and Fanny's sisterly verdict is that 'she never remembers to have spent a pleasanter hour.' The work remains in MS. at the Singakademie and the Berlin Bibliothek, and has probably the faults of almost all such compositions. Even Beethoven failed when he had to write to order. Fate however had a second task of the same kind in store for Felix, with some curious variations. This time the cantata was for a meeting (or, as we should now call it, a 'congress') of physicians and investigators of natural science, to whom a festival was given by A. von Humboldt as president. Bellstab wrote the words, and Felix was invited to compose the music. It contains 7 numbers for solo and chorus. Owing to a whim of Humboldt's the chorus was confined to men's voices, and the orchestra to clarinets, horns, trumpets, cellos, and basses. The thing came off in September; but no ladies—not even Fanny—were admitted, no report is given in the musical paper; and as there is no mention of it in the MS. Catalogue the autograph has probably vanished. Chopin was present at the sitting of the congress, and saw Mendelssohn with Spontini and Zelter; but his modesty kept him from introducing himself, and their acquaintance was put off to a later date.

Felix had however during the summer been occupied in a more congenial task than such pièces d'occasion as these, viz. in the composition of the Overture to Goethe's 'Calm sea and Prosperous voyage,' on which we find him employed in June. Fanny gives us the interesting information that he especially avoided the form of an Overture with Introduction, and wished his work to stand as two companion pictures. She mentions also his having written pianoforte pieces at this time, including some 'Lieder ohne Worte' (a title not destined to come before the world for some years) and a great Antiphona and Responsorium for 4 choirs, 'Hora est,' etc., which still remains in MS.

For Christmas he wrote a second Kinder-symphonie, which delighted every one so much that it had to be repeated on the spot. He also re-scored Handel's Acis and Galatea, and the Dettingen Te Deum, at Zelter's desire, for the use of the Singakademie. They have since been published, but are not satisfactory specimens of such work. He also wrote the Variations in D