Page:The history of Mendelssohn's oratorio 'Elijah'.djvu/70

 HISTORY OF MENDELSSOHN'S '• ELIJAH."

��never mind how short, for the time is short — and I want all the time to enable me to do it as well as I can. And the choralists want all the time to rehearse it as often as they can, for the more often it is rehearsed the better.

" No. 6 wants the time ; and I hope you will have time to write an overture, or introduction, unless you expressly design there shall be none. I understand they (the Birmingham Directors) have engaged Staudigl, I hope with the intention of giving him the Prophet's part, although it is reported here that Phillips is to sing it. Much will depend on who sings it [the oratorio] so far as the soloists are concerned ; but the choruses ! they will be the main feature, and the glory of their composer. The Baal Priests' choruses are wrought to a climax truly sublime. Go on, my dear Sir, go on ! until you soar with your * Elijah ' on the returning lire to the height from which he called it down !


 * ' Your grateful and obliged

" W. Bartholomew."

��[Mendelssohn to Bartholomew.]

[WritUn in English.]

" Leipzig, July 3, 1846.*

" My dear Sir, — Many, many thanks for your kind letter and for your translation of the first part of Elijah. I can but write in great haste, else I

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 * This letter is reproduced \n facsimile at the end of this book.

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