Page:The history of Mendelssohn's oratorio 'Elijah'.djvu/71

 iilE ENGLISH TRANSLATION.

��would try to say more, and to thank you better for all your kindness. But I will do so in person, and meanwhile I merely say — I thank you most heartily, most sincerely, and I hasten to answer your questions.

" Those words in the choruses which you or I may now or hereafter object to, might, I hope, still be altered in pencil or ink in the parts, if already printed ; for if an improvement can be made, it must never be omitted because the printing should be finished. A little more trouble will be amply repaid by a little improve- ment ! And as for the Solo Parts, they must not be printed at all for the Festival, but only written out (copied), and can only be printed together with the pianoforte arrangement, and after the performance. For these accordingly we have time till then, to alter and improve. Pray let Mr. Buxton [Ewer and Co., the English publishers] read all this !

" No. I. I wish to keep this if possible as in the English Bible version ; therefore I propose* : —

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��there shall not be dew nor rain these years, not dew nor rain &c.

'* No. 5, at the end, I propose to say * and in our affliction He comforteth us,' and to slur from D to E

more intelligible to the general reader, and easier of reference to the printed score, I have added clefs and key signatures where Mendels- sohn did not think it necessary to insert them when writing to Bartholomew. The figures in brackets refer to the present numbers in Novello's Edition of the Oratorio. ( 53 )
 * In order to make the musical examples in the following letters

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