



Produced by Helene de Mink, Bryan Ness, Music transcribed
by Anne Celnick, Linda Cantoni, and the DP Music Team and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)







Transcriber's note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the
original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors
have been corrected.




     LETTERS
     OF
     FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY
     FROM
     ITALY AND SWITZERLAND.

     TRANSLATED BY LADY WALLACE.

     WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE
     BY JULIE DE MARGUERITTES.

     [Illustration: logo]

     BOSTON:
     OLIVER DITSON & CO., 277 WASHINGTON STREET.
     NEW YORK: C. H. DITSON & CO.




FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.


Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was born at Hamburg, on the third of
February, 1809. The name to which he was destined to add such
lustre, was already high in the annals of fame. Moses Mendelssohn,
his grandfather, a great Jewish philosopher, one of the most
remarkable men of his time, was the author of profound Metaphysical
works, written both in German and Hebrew. To this great power of
intellect, Moses Mendelssohn added a purity and dignity of
character worthy of the old stoics. The epigraph on the bust of
this ancestor of the composer, shows the esteem in which he was
held by his contemporaries:

"Faithful to the religion of his fathers, as wise as Socrates, like
Socrates teaching the immortality of the soul, and like Socrates
leaving a name that is immortal."

One of Moses Mendelssohn's daughters married Frederick Schlegel,
and swerving from the religion in which both had been brought up,
both became Roman Catholics.

Joseph Mendelssohn, the eldest son of this great old man, was also
distinguished for his literary taste, and has left two excellent
works of very different characters, one on Dante, the other on the
system of a paper currency.

In conjunction with his brother, Abraham, he founded the
banking-house of Mendelssohn & Company at Berlin, still flourishing
under the management of the sons of the original founders, the
brothers and cousins of Felix, the subject of this memoir.

George Mendelssohn the son of Joseph, was also a distinguished
political writer and Professor in the University at Bonn.

With such an array of intellectual ancestry, the Mendelssohn of our
day came into the world at Hamburg, on the third of February,1809.
He was named Felix, and a more appropriate name could not have been
found for him, for in character, circumstance and endowment, he was
supremely happy. Goethe, speaking of him, said "the boy was born on
a lucky day." His first piece of good fortune, was in having not
only an excellent virtuous woman for his mother, but a woman who,
besides these qualities, possessed extraordinary intellect and had
received an education that fitted her to be the mother of children
endowed as hers were. She professed the Lutheran creed, in which
her children were brought up. Being of a distinguished commercial
family and an heiress, her husband added her name of Bartholdy to
his own. Mme. Mendelssohn Bartholdy's other children were, Fanny
her first-born, whose life is entirely interwoven with that of her
brother Felix, and Paul and Rebecca, born some years later.

When yet a boy, Felix removed with his parents to Berlin, probably
at the time of the formation of the banking house. The Prussian
capital has often claimed the honor of being his birthplace, but
that distinction really belongs to Hamburg.

His extraordinary musical talent was not long in developing itself.
His sister Fanny, his "soul's friend" and constant companion,
almost as richly endowed as himself, aroused his emulation, and
they studied music together first as an art, and then as a science,
to be the foundation of future works of inspiration and genius.

Zelter, severe and classic, profoundly scientific, inexorable for
all that was not true science, became the teacher of these two
gifted children in composition and in counterpoint. For piano-forte
playing, Berger was the professor, though some years later
Moscheles added the benefit of his counsels, and Felix was fond of
calling himself the pupil of Moscheles, with whom in after life he
contracted a close friendship. Zelter was exceedingly proud of his
pupil, soon discovering that instead of an industrious and
intelligent child, one of the greatest musical geniuses ever known
was dawning on the world. When he was but fifteen, Zelter took the
young musician to Weimar, and secured for him the acquaintance and
good will of Goethe, which as long as Goethe lived, seemed to be
the necessary consecration of all talent in Germany. By this time
not only was he an admirable performer on the piano, possessed of
a talent for improvisation and a memory so wonderful, that not only
could he play almost all Bach, Haendel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven
by heart, but he could also without hesitation accompany a whole
opera from memory, provided he had but seen the score once. The
overture to Midsummer Night's Dream, so popular now in every
country, was composed before he was seventeen, and was played for
the first time as a duet on the piano by his sister Fanny and
himself on the 19th November, 1826. This is indeed the inspiration
of youth with its brilliancy, its buoyancy, its triumphant joy,
full of the poetry of a young heart, full of the imagination of a
mind untainted by the world. It was not till some years after, that
Mendelssohn completed the music to Shakspeare's great play. In
1827, Felix left the University of Berlin with great honors. He was
a profound classical scholar, and has left as a specimen of his
knowledge, a correct, graceful and elegant translation of Terence's
comedy of Andria, a work greatly approved of by Goethe. He excelled
in gymnastics, was an elegant rider, and like Lord Byron, a bold
and accomplished swimmer. The year he left the University, he went
to England, where Henrietta Sonntag was in the height of her fame.
He played in several concerts where she sang, as well as with
Moscheles, his old friend and teacher, now established in London.

On his return to Germany in 1830, he visited Goethe at Weimar, and
there planned his journey to Italy, a country which all men of
genius yearn after, as the promised land of inspiration. When in
Rome, Felix Mendelssohn began the grand Cantata of the Walpurgis
Night, to Goethe's words, at which he worked for some years. On his
return from his travels, Mendelssohn, who had now all the assurance
and self-possession of an artist, was appointed chapel-master at
Duesseldorf, a position which gave him the direction of the grand
musical festivals held at that time in this city and in
Aix-la-Chapelle. It was during his residence in Duesseldorf, that he
composed his oratorio of St. Paul, and also, the first set of his
"Songs without Words" for the piano, where the music, by its varied
expression and its intensity, alone told the story of the poet.
These compositions were a novelty for piano-forte players, and
inaugurated a new style, full of interest, gradually setting aside
the variations and sonatas which had become so meaningless and
tedious. The oratorio of St. Paul was not given until 1836, when it
was produced at Duesseldorf, under his own special superintendence.
Mendelssohn composed very rapidly, but he was cautious in giving
his works to the public, until they thoroughly satisfied his
judgment, the most critical to which they could be submitted.

In the latter part of 1836, having gone to Frankfort, to direct a
concert of the Ceciliaverein, he became acquainted with Cecilia
Jeanrenaud, a beautiful and accomplished girl, the second daughter
of a clergyman of the Reformed Church, and in the spring of 1837
she became his wife. The marriage had been delayed some months by
Mendelssohn's ill health; he had begun to feel the first symptoms
of the nervous disease, affecting the brain, from which he was
destined henceforth to suffer, and of which, finally, he was fated
to die.

After his marriage he undertook the direction of the Leipzig
Concerts. All over Germany, Mendelssohn was in requisition; his
immense genius as a composer, his great skill as a conductor, his
gentle, fascinating manners, gave him extraordinary popularity. It
was England, however, after all, who appreciated him most. Sacred
music seems to appeal especially to the English taste. Haydn,
Haendel, Beethoven have all found more patronage and appreciation in
England than in their own country. So it was with Mendelssohn; the
greatest musical triumph ever achieved, was the performance of the
oratorio of Elijah, given at Birmingham, the work on which
Mendelssohn's fame will rest. He was nine years in composing this
oratorio; and notwithstanding the most flattering ovation,
Mendelssohn's serene temperament was not moved to vanity or
conceit. In the very moment of his success, he sat down modestly to
correct many things that had not satisfied him. The trio for three
female voices (without accompaniment) one of the most beautiful
pieces in the oratorio, was added by the composer after the public
had declared itself satisfied with the work as it originally stood.
Elijah was produced in 1847, but Mendelssohn had been several times
to England before this, playing at the ancient and Philharmonic
concerts; at that time, the resort of the elite in London.

It was during one of these visits in 1842, that Prince Albert, who
as a German and a musician, had sought his acquaintance, introduced
him to Queen Victoria. The visit was entirely devoid of formality,
for without any previous announcement, the Prince conducted
Mendelssohn from his private apartments, to the Queen's study,
where they found her surrounded by papers, and just terminating her
morning's work. The Queen receiving him most graciously, apologized
to the composer for the untidiness of the room, beginning herself
to put it in order and laughingly accepting his assistance. After
some agreeable conversation Mendelssohn sat down to the piano and
played