Page:The history of Mendelssohn's oratorio 'Elijah'.djvu/98

 HISTORY OF MENDELSSOHN'S '• ELIJAH."

��the last of which is not only indefinitely prolonged by a pause, but has in addition a crescendo and diminuendo mark. " Any oboeist," observes the Temple organist, " who would dare to try and sustain that note as directed would, before bringing it to a termination, himself cease to exist ! "*

" Elijah " was honoured with the novelty of a preliminary analytical notice in The Times of Monday, August 24, 1846, two days before the first perform- ance. This article, two columns in length, was one of the earliest contributions of the late J. W. Davison, on his joining the staff of The Times, of which paper he was for many years the musical critic.

Euston station presented an animated scene on the Sunda\' afternoon preceding the Festival, when a special train, which left London at 2 p.m., conve\-ed Mendelssohn, the solo singers, the band, the London contingent of the chorus, and the " Gentlemen of the Press" to Birmingham.

Monday morning was set apart for a full rehearsal of " Elijah " in the Town Hall, which is thus described in the Birmingham Journal : —

Mendelssohn was received by the performers with great enthusiasm, renewed again and again, as his lithe and pdit

• As a specimen of Grattan Cooke's humour, the following incident was related to me by a veteran musician who was a fellow- student of the witty oboeist at the Royal Academy of Music. At one of the early rehearsals of Mendelssohn's " Midsummer Night's Dream " Overture, Cooke was missed from his place in the orchestra, and was soon afterwards seen walking up the room carrying a ladder. " What on earth have you got that for? " he was asked. Cooke replied : " He's written the notes so tremendously high, that I've brought a ladder to get up to them I " ( 80 )

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