Page:The history of Mendelssohn's oratorio 'Elijah'.djvu/59

 BIRMINGHAM.

��head, and working them now and then upon the paper into a piece, though not quite in the proper order, one after another."* To Devrient : " I am working day and night at my new oratorio to send to England, otherwise it will not be in time." To his sister Fanny: *' I am more driven than ever, as an immense piece of * Elijah ' is not yet copied, whilst the first part is already in rehearsal in England. . . . The first thing to-morrow morning I shall shut myself up, and decline to budge till ' Elijah ' is finished, which may not be for another three weeks, and that I also swear by my beard."

The anxiety of the Birmingham Committee was somewhat relieved by the receipt of the following letter from the composer : —

[To Joseph Moore, Esq.]

\ Written in English.]

" Leipzig, May 8, 1846.

" My dear Sir, — I write these lines to inform you that I intend to send the whole of the first part of my oratorio to Mr. Moscheles in the course of the next fortnight. It is by far the greater part of the two ; the choruses from the second part will be in England towards the beginning of July, and the rest of the whole in the middle of that month. All this, Deo volente.

translated several other vocal pieces of mine, would undertake also this ; and I wish he might take advice • " Memoir of Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt," L, 392.
 * ' I wish Mr. Bartholomew, in London, who has

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