Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/192

 530 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS town, had been first of all received with great coldness, owing to the usual prices of admission to the concerts having been raised, Mendelssohn set everything straight by having a soiree in his honor at the Gewandhaus, where there were three hundred and fifty people, orchestra, chorus, punch, pastry, Meeresstille Psalm, Bach's Triple Concerto, choruses from St. Paul, Fantasia on Lucia, the Erl King, the Devil and his Grandmother, the latter probably a mild satirical ref- erence to Liszt's stormy and often incoherent playing. It is also pleasant to find how cordially Mendelssohn received Berlioz there, as told in the " Memoirs " of the latter, spending ungrudgingly long days in aiding in rehearsals for his " Romeo et Juliette," though Mendelssohn never sympathized much with Ber- lioz's eccentric muse. The " Lobgesang," or " Hymn of Praise," a " symphonie-cantata," as he called it, was his next great work, composed in 1840, together with other music, at the request of the Leipsic Town-Council, for a festival held in that town in commemoration of the invention of printing, on June 25th. None who have heard this work can forget the first impression produced when the grand instru- mental movements with which it commences are merged in the majestic chorus, " All men, all things, praise ye the Lord," or the intensely dramatic effect of the repeated tenor cry, " Watchman, will the night soon pass ? " answered at last by the clear soprano message of glad tidings, " The night is departing, the day is at hand ! " This " watchman " episode was added some time afterward, and, as he told a friend, was suggested to the composer during the weary hours of a long sleepless night, when the words, "Will the night soon pass?" again and again seemed to be repeated to him. But a greater work even than this was now in progress ; the " Elijah " had been begun. In 1 84 1 began a troublesome and harassing connection with Berlin, a city where, except in his home life, Mendelssohn never seems to have been very for- tunate. At the urgent entreaty of the king, he went to reside there as head of the new Musical Academy. But disagreements arose, and he did not long take an active part in the management. The king, however, was very anxious to re- tain his services, and a sort of general office seems to have been created for him, the duties of which were to supply music for any dramatic works which the king took it into his head to have so embellished. And, though it is to this that we owe the noble "Antigone," " OZdipus," " Athalie," "Midsummer Night's Dream," and other music, this work to dictation was very worrying, and one cannot think without impatience of the annoyances to which he was subjected. The king could not understand why he shrank from writing music to the choruses of Ms- chylus's " Eumenides." Other composers would do it by the yard, why not he ? Passing rapidly over the intervening years filled with busy work, both in com- position and as one of the principals of a newly started Conservatorium in Leip- sic, we come to 1846, when his great work " Elijah " was at last completed and performed. On August 26th, at the Birmingham Festival, the performance went splendidly. Staudigl took the part of the prophet, and a young tenor, Lockey, sang the air, " Then shall the righteous," in the last part, as Mendels-