Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/300

288 can I.' But in addition to the work of his classes, a great deal of miscellaneous work fell upon him as virtual head of the School. Minute lists of the attendance and conduct of the pupils, drawn up by him, still remain to attest the thorough way in which he did his duty, and we have Moscheles's express testimony that during the overwhelming work of this summer he never neglected his pupils. But it was another ounce added to his load. The fixed labour, the stated hours, when combined with his composition, his correspondence, his hospitality, and all his other pursuits, was too much, and to his intimate friends he complained bitterly of the strain, and expressed his earnest wish to give up all work and worry, and devote himself entirely to his Art—in his own words, to shut himself into his room and write music till he was tired, and then walk out in the fresh air.

Meantime Elijah was fast becoming a realised fact: by May 23, 1846, the first Part was quite finished, and six or eight numbers of the second Part written, and a large portion despatched to London to be translated by Mr. Bartholomew and Klingemann. 'I am jumping about my room for joy,' he writes to a very dear friend on the completion of Part I. 'If it only turns out half as good as I fancy it is, how pleased I shall be!' And yet, much as the oratorio engrossed him, he was corresponding with Mad. Birch-Pfeiffer about an opera, and writes to the same friend as if the long-desired libretto were virtually within his grasp. At this date he interrupted his work for three weeks to conduct a succession of performances on the Rhine—at Aix-la-Chapelle, the Festival, May 31 to June 2; at Düsseldorf, a soirée; at Liége, on Corpus Christi day, June 11, his hymn 'Lauda Sion,' composed expressly for that occasion, and dated Feb. 10, 1846; and at Cologne the first festival of the German-Flemish association, for which he had composed a Festgesang on Schiller's poem 'an die Künstler' (op. 68). His reception throughout this tour was rapturous, and delighted him. The three weeks were one continued scene of excitement. Every moment not taken up in rehearsing or performing made some demand on his strength. He was in the highest spirits all the time, but the strain must have been great, arid was sure to be felt sooner or later. It will all be found in a delightful letter to Fanny of June 27, 1846. On June 26 he is again at Leipzig, writing to Moscheles to protest against the exclusion from the band at Birmingham of some musicians who had been impertinent to him at the Philharmonic in 1844. The summer was unusually hot, and his friends well remember how exhausted he often became over his close work. But he kept his time. The remainder of the Oratorio was in Mr. Bartholomew's hands by the latter part of July; the instrumental parts were copied in Leipzig and rehearsed by Mendelssohn there on Aug. 5. One of the last things he did before leaving was to give his consent to the publication of some of Fanny's compositions, which, owing to his 'tremendous reverence for print,' he had always opposed, and now only agreed to reluctantly. He arrived in London, for the ninth time, on the evening of Aug. 18, had a trial rehearsal with piano at Moscheles's house, two band-rehearsals at Hanover Square, went down to Birmingham on Sunday the 23rd, had full rehearsals on Monday morning and Tuesday evening, and the Oratorio was performed on the morning of Wednesday the 26th. The Town Hall was densely crowded, and it was observed that the sun burst forth and lit up the scene as Mendelssohn took his place, amid a deafening roar of applause from band, chorus, and audience. Staudigl was the Elijah, and Mr. Lockey sang the air 'Then shall the righteous' in a manner which called forth Mendelssohn's warmest praise. 'No work of mine'—says he in the long letter which he wrote his brother the same evening—'no work of mine ever went so admirably at the first performance, or was received with such enthusiasm both by musicians and the public, as this.' 'I never in my life heard a better performance—no nor so good, and almost doubt if I can ever hear one like it again.' No less than four choruses and four airs were encored. The applause at the conclusion of both first and second parts was enormous—almost grotesquely so; and an old member of the band well remembers the eagerness with which Mendelssoln shook hands with all who could get near him in the artist's room, thanking them warmly for the performance. [App. p.717 "As a reminiscence it may be mentioned that the holding C's for the oboe in the recitative of the Youth, in no. 19, were put in at the end of the first rehearsal, on Mr. Grattan Cooke's complaining that Mendelssohn had given him no solos."] He returned to London with Mr. and Mrs. Moscheles, 'on purpose for a fish dinner at Lovegrove's,' spent four days at Ramsgate with the Beneckes 'to eat crabs,' and on Sept. 6 recrossed the Channel with Staudigl. His visit this time had been one of intense hard work, as any one who knows what it is to achieve the first performance of a great work for solos, chorus, and orchestra, will readily understand. And the strain was unremitting, for, owing partly to Moscheles's illness, he had no relaxation, or next to none. In consequence he was so tired as to be compelled to rest three times between Ostend and Leipzig. It is a sad contrast to the buoyancy of the similar journey ten years before.

But notwithstanding the success of the Oratorio the reader will hardly believe that he himself was satisfied with his work. Quite the contrary. His letter to Klingemann of Dec. 6 shows the eagerness with which he went about his corrections; and the alterations were so serious as to justify our enumerating the chief of them:—The