Page:The history of Mendelssohn's oratorio 'Elijah'.djvu/103

 THE FIRST PERFORMANCE.

��on the towing-path between the bridges, they walked for more than an hour discussing the new oratorio. According to the late Mr. Moore, it was then and there, amidst the scenery of the cinder heaps, that a sudden thought struck Mendelssohn to change "Lift thine eyes " from a duet into a trio.

Shortly after this "prettiest walk in Birmingham," Mendelssohn poured out his delighted feelings to his brother Paul in the following letter : —

��[To Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.]

"Birmingham, August 26 [Pay], 1846.

" My dear Brother, — From the very first you took so kind an interest in my ' Elijah,' and thus inspired me with so much energy and courage for its com- pletion, that I must write to tell you all about its first performance yesterday. No work of mine ever went so admirably the first time of execution, or was received with such enthusiasm, by both the musicians and the audience, as this oratorio. It was quite evident, at the first rehearsal in London, that they liked it, and liked to sing and to play it ; but I own I was far from anticipating that it would acquire such fresh vigour and ' go ' in it at the performance. If you had only been there ! During the whole two hours and a half that it lasted, the two thousand people in the large hall, and the large orchestra, were all so fully intent on the one object in question, that not the slightest sound was to be heard among the whole audience, so that I could sway at pleasure the ( 85 )

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