Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/297

MENDELSSOHN. one from Miss Horsley after the rehearsal on the Saturday. At the rehearsal itself, owing to some difficulty in the band coming in at the end of his cadence in the first movement, he played it three times over, each time quite extempore, and each time new, and at the performance on the Monday it was again different.

In addition to the Philharmonic, Mendelssohn took part in many other public concerts—conducted St. Paul for the Sacred Harmonic Society on June 28 and July 5, extemporised at the British Musicians, played his own D minor Trio, and his Duet Variations (op. 83), and took part twice in Bach's Triple Concerto—once (June 1) with Moscheles and Thalberg, when he electrified the room with his sudden improvisation in the cadence, and again (July 5) with Moscheles and Dohler. He also finished a scena for bass voice and orchestra, to words from Ossian—'On Lena's gloomy heath,' which he undertook at the request of Mr. H. Phillips in 1842, and which that gentleman sang at the Philharmonic, March 15, 1847. On June 12 he and Dickens met for the first time. On June 18 he is at Manchester, writing to Mr. Hawes, M.P. to secure a ticket for the House of Commons. Piatti he met for the first time during this visit, at Moscheles's house, and played with him his new Duo in D. No one had a quicker eye for a great artist, and he at once became attached to the noble player who has now made London his winter home, and is so much admired by all frequenters of the Monday Popular Concerts. One of his latest words on leaving England for the last time was, 'I must write a concerto for Piatti.' In fact, he had already composed the first movement. The enthusiasm for him in London was greater than ever, and all the more welcome after the irritations of Berlin. He was more widely known at each visit, and every acquaintance became a friend. He never enjoyed himself more than when in the midst of society, music, fun, and excitement. 'We have the best news from Felix,' says Fanny during this visit, 'and when I tell you that he has ordered a large Baum-Kuchen [a peculiar Berlin cake, looking like a piece of the trunk of a tree] to be sent to London for him, you will know that that is the best possible sign.' 'A mad, most extraordinarily mad time,' says he, 'I never had so severe a time before—never in bed till half past one; for three weeks together not a single hour to myself in any one day,' etc. 'My visit was glorious. I was never received anywhere with such universal kindness, and have made more music in these two months than I do elsewhere in two years.' But even by all this he was not to be kept from work. He laboured at his edition of Israel in Egypt for the Handel Society; and on official pressure from Berlin—which turned out to be mere vexation, as the work was not performed for more than a year—actually, in the midst of all the turmoil, wrote the Overture to Athalie, the autograph of which is dated June 13, 1844. Very trying! and very imprudent, as we now see! but also very difficult to avoid. And his power of recovery after fatigue was as great as his power of enjoyment, so great as often no doubt to tempt him to try himself. Three things were in his favour—his splendid constitution; an extraordinary power of sleep, which he possessed in common with many other great men, and of being lazy when there was nothing to do; and most of all that, though excitable to any amount, he was never dissipated. The only stimulants he indulged in were those of music, society, and boundless good spirits.

On July 10 he left London, and on the 13th was in the arms of his wife and children at Soden, near Frankfort. During his absence they had been seriously ill, but his wife had kept the news from him, and when he returned he found them all well, brown, and hearty. For the life of happy idleness which he passed there in the next two months—'eating and sleeping, without dress coat, without piano, without visiting cards, without carriage and horses, but with donkeys, with wild flowers, with music-paper and sketch-book, with Cécile and the children'—interrupted only by the Festival which he conducted at Zweibrücken on July 31 and Aug. 1, the reader must be referred to his own charming letters. 'Idleness' does not mean ceasing to compose, so much as composing only when he had a mind to it. And that was often; he had no piano, but he completed the Violin Concerto on Sept. 16, after a long and minute correspondence with David, and many of the movements of the six organ sonatas appear in the MS. Catalogue, with dates ranging from July 22 to Sept. 10. Doubtless, too, he was working at the book of 'Christus,' a new oratorio, the first draft of which he had received from Bunsen on Easter Monday of this year. At this time also he arranged a collection of organ pieces by Bach for the firm of Coventry & Hollier, by whom they were published in London in the summer of 1845. The pleasure in his simple home life which crops out now and then in these Frankfort letters, is very genuine and delightful. Now, Marie is learning the scale of C, and he has actually forgotten how to play it, and has taught her to pass her thumb under the wrong finger! Now, Paul tumbles about so as to crack their skulls as well as his own. Another time he is dragged off from his letter to see a great tower which the children have built, and on which they have ranged all their slices of bread and jam—'a good idea for an architect.' At ten Carl comes to him for reading and sums, and at five for spelling and geography—and so on. 'And,' to sum up, 'the best part of every pleasure is gone if Cécile is not there.' His wife is always somewhere in the picture.

But the time arrived for resuming his duties at Berlin, and, leaving his family behind him at Frankfort, he arrived there on Sept. 30, alone, and took up his quarters with the Hensels. We