Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/301

MENDELSSOHN. chorus 'Help, Lord!' (No. 1), much changed; the end of the double quartet (No. 7), rewritten; the scene with the widow (No. 8) entirely recast and much extended; the chorus 'Blessed are the men' (No. 9), rescored; the words of the quartet 'Cast thy burden' (No. 15), new; the soprano air 'Hear ye' (No. 21), added to and reconstructed; in the Jezebel scene a new chorus, 'Woe to him' (No. 24), in place of a suppressed one, 'Do unto him as he hath done,' and the recitative 'Man of God' added; the trio 'Lift thine eyes' (No. 28) was originally a duet, quite different; Obadiah's recitative and air (No. 25) are new; the chorus 'Go return,' and Elijah's answer (No. 36) are also new. The last chorus (No. 42) is entirely rewritten to fresh words, the text having formerly been 'Unto Him that is able,' etc. The omissions are chiefly a movement of 95 bars, alla breve, to the words 'He shall open the eyes of the blind,' which formed the second part of the chorus 'Thus saith the Lord' (No. 41), and a recitative for tenor 'Elijah is come already and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed,' with which Part 2 of the oratorio originally opened. In addition to these more prominent alterations there is hardly a movement throughout the work which has not been more or less worked upon.

The oratorio was then engraved, and published by Simrock of Berlin in July 1847. Meantime Mendelssohn had been again reminded of his duties at Berlin by an urgent command from the King to set the German Liturgy to music. This (still in MS.), and an anthem or motet (published as op. 79, no. 5), both for double choir, are respectively dated Oct. 28 and Oct. 5, 1846. A song for the Germans in Lyons—dear to him as the birthplace of his wife—and a Psalm-tune for the French Reformed Church in Frankfort, are dated the 8th and 9th of the same month. On Oct. 21 the Moscheleses arrive at Leipzig, and Moscheles begins his duties as Professor of Pianoforte-playing and Composition.—Gade again conducted the Gewandhaus Concerts for this season. A trace of Mendelssohn's interest in them remains in a P.F. accompaniment to the E major Violin Prelude of Bach, which he evidently wrote for David's performance at the Concert of Nov. 12, 1846. The MS. is dated the day before, and is amongst David's papers. During October and November he was very much occupied with the illness of his faithful servant Johann Krebs, to whom he was deeply attached—'mein braver guter Diener' as he calls him—and whose death, on Nov. 23, distressed him much. It was another link in the chain of losses which was ultimately to drag him down. Fortunately he had again, as at the time of his mother's death, some mechanical work to which he could turn. This time it was the comparison of the original autograph parts of Bach's grand mass with his score of the same work. As time went on, however, he was able to apply himself to more independent tasks, and by Dec. 6 was again hard at work on the alterations of Elijah. Since the middle of October he had been in communication with Mr. Lumley, then lessee of Her Majesty's Theatre, London, as to an opera to be founded by Scribe on 'The Tempest,' already tried by Immermann (see p. 268b); and a long correspondence between himself, Scribe, and Lumley appears to have taken place, no doubt exhaustive on his part. It came to nothing, from his dissatisfaction with the libretto, but it was accompanied by extreme and long-continued annoyance, owing to his belief that the opera was announced in London as if he were under a contract to complete it, and that for the season of 1847. He was at this moment more or less committed to the subject of Loreley, on which he had communicated with Geibel the poet as early as the preceding April. Geibel, a friend of Mendelssohn's and a warm admirer of his wife's, was at work on the book, and completed it at the beginning of 1847. Mendelssohn occasionally conducted the later Gewandhaus concerts of this season, and some of the programmes were of special interest, such as two historical concerts on Feb. 18 and 25, 1847. One of these gave him the opportunity to write a charming letter to the daughter of Reichardt, a composer for whom he always had a special fondness, and whose Morning Hymn (from Milton) had been performed at the Festival at Cologne in 1835 at his instance.

This was not on the whole a satisfactory autumn. After the extra hard work of the spring and summer, especially the tremendous struggle against time in finishing Elijah, he ought to have had a long and complete rest, like that which so revived him in 1844; whereas the autumn was spent at Leipzig, a less congenial spot than Frankfort, and, as we have shown, in the midst of grave anxiety and perpetual business, involving a correspondence which those only can appreciate who have seen its extent, and the length of the letters, and the care and neatness with which the whole is registered and arranged by his own hands. Knowing what ultimately happened, it is obvious that this want of rest, coming after so much stress, must have told seriously upon him. He himself appears to have felt the necessity of lessening his labours, for we are told that he had plans for giving up all stated and uncongenial duty, and doing only what he felt disposed to do, for building a house in Frankfort, so as to pass the summer there, and the winter in Berlin with his sisters, and thus in some measure revive the old family life to which he so strongly urges his brother-in-law in a remarkable letter of this time. Nothing however could stop the current of his musical power. He was at work on 'Christus,' the new oratorio. As Capellmeister to the King of Saxony he had to arrange