Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/27

Rh serving an ecclesiastic aged 60 in the capacity of duenna is piquant enough. Countess had given me a list of pieces of old music that she wished to have copies of if possible; Santini had all the originals, and I owe him my best thanks for giving me copies of them, so that I can go through them together and thus come to know them. I beg you will send the six cantatas of Sebastian Bach which Marx has had published by Simrock, or else some of the organ pieces, to serve as tokens of my gratitude. I should much prefer the cantatas; he has already the Magnificat, the Motets, and so forth.

He has adapted “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied,” and is going to produce it at Naples; we owe him something for that. I am writing at length to Zelter about the papal choir which I have heard three times, twice at the Quirinal on the Monte Cavallo, and once at San Carlo. One person I delight in is Bunsen. We shall have a great deal of talking to do together; sometimes it even strikes me that this will be the starting-point of some of my future work; and I am sure that anything I can try at with a good conscience shall be done joyfully, and with all the power I have. It helps me beside to feel at home and read Goethe’s Italian Journey for the first time, and I must confess it was a great joy to discover that he arrived in Rome precisely the same day that I did. Further, that he also went first to the Quirinal and heard a requiem there; he says too that at Florence and Bologna a sort of impatience took possession of him, and on arrival here he felt calm again, and, as he calls