Zelter's declaration of his pupil's independence. The first of these
was an Octet for stringed instruments, designed as a birthday present
for Edward Ritz, the young violinist, for whom Mendelssohn entertained
a deep affection, and whose premature death caused him much sorrow.
Felix had not completed his seventeenth year when the Octet was
written. He had already composed a great deal, but he had done nothing
so entirely fresh and original as this. Indeed, one might place one's
finger on the Octet, and, forgetting everything which he had written
before, say with emphasis and truth: 'This is Mendelssohn himself;
this is his very own.' No longer an 'apprentice,' swayed or, at least,
influenced by the masters who had gone before him, he has here given
us the first-fruits of his 'assistantship' in a work which expresses
his own musicianly feelings, and in which we get our first glimpse of
his true genius. The whole piece was intended to be played _staccato_
and _pianissimo_. It has a fleeting, spiritual, and fairy-like effect,
with 'tremolos and trills passing away with the quickness of
lightning.' The Scherzo is especially beautiful, and Mendelssohn
admitted to his sister Fanny that he had taken as his motto for this
movement a stanza from Goethe's Walpurgis-night Dream in 'Faust':
'Floating cloud and trailing mist
Bright'ning o'er us hover;
Airs stir the brake, the rushes shake--
And all their pomp is over.'
We are reminded of this in the last part, where 'the first violin
takes a flight with a feather-like lightness, and all has vanished.'
But if the Octet serves to mark a distinct stage in the development of
Mendelssohn's genius, what are we to say of the work which followed
it? Several things had paved the way for this new composition. To
begin with, Felix and Fanny made their first acquaintance with
Shakespeare in this year through the medium of a German translation,
and they fell completely under the spell of 'A Midsummer Night's
Dream.' Then the summer proved to be an exceptionally fine one, and
led to many hours being spent in the beautiful garden--in fact, there
is no doubt that the garden began it. It is not difficult to imagine
how the romantic mind of Felix was stirred by reading this delightful
fairy play amidst such charming surroundings. To read thus was to
picture in music, to give a musical setting to both scene and action,
at first indefinite, shadowy, suggestive, but as reading and thinking
progressed, growing ever stronger and more clearly defined. Thus,
stretched upon the turf, book in hand, the silence broken only by the
singing of the birds and the humming of the bees, the music of the
Overture to 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' gradually shaped itself in
Mendelssohn's mind, until what at the beginning had in itself been
little more than a dream, became a tangible creation.
When the Overture had been written down, it was frequently played by
Felix and Fanny as a duet. In this simple form Moscheles heard it for
the first time, and he was struck by the force of its beauty. The work
was elaborated and perfected by degrees, until the day arrived when it
was performed by the garden-house orchestra before a crowded audience.
So great was the reception accorded to the overture on this occasion
that in the February following Felix journeyed to Stettin to conduct
the first public performance.
When we listen to this beautiful work, we are constrained to admit
that no happier introduction to the play could have been devised; for
just as the play itself seems to demand for its environment some
lovely garden or woodland glade, so Mendelssohn's music conjures up
visions of the fairy scenes of enchantment with which the play
abounds. It is a work instinct with musicianly feeling, and its
strength is borne out by the soundness and skill displayed in its
construction. As a great musical judge[29] has said of it: 'No one
piece of music contains so many points of harmony and orchestration
that had never been written before, and yet none of them have the air
of experiment, but seem all to have been written with certainty of
their success.'
But we must not linger over this portion of our story, though we are
tempted to do so; for there can be no doubt that these years spent in
the Leipziger Strasse house, when the members of the family were all
together, each contributing his or her share to the intellectual
intercourse that went on beneath its hospitable roof, afford the
happiest pictures of Mendelssohn's young life. It was so full and
many-sided a life, hard work alternating with gymnastics, dancing,
swimming, riding, and, of course, music, each occupation pursued with
such zest and heartiness as to convey the impression at the moment of
its being the most absorbing of all.
Amidst these pleasures, however, a new project had taken hold of his
mind, one which, like many another great undertaking fraught with
far-reaching results, owed its inception to the feeling aroused by the
indifference and lack of sympathy shown by others towards what he
himself believed to be deserving of the highest praise. Two years
before, Felix's grandmother had presented him with a manuscript score
of Bach's 'Passion according to St. Matthew,' which Zelter had
permitted to be copied from the manuscript in the Singakademie. A more
devoted lover of Bach's music than Zelter could not have been found,
and the old man had infused some of this love into his pupil;
consequently, when the score of the 'Passion' was placed in
Mendelssohn's hands, he set to work to master it, and with such
earnestness had he applied himself to the study that at this point of
our story he knew the whole of it by heart.
The more he studied this great work, the more was he impressed by its
beauty and the grandeur of its conception. Could it possibly be true,
he asked himself, that throughout the length and breadth of Germany
so stupendous a work as this remained unheard, unknown? that a
creation so deathless in itself could be permitted to sleep without
even the hope of an awakening? 'Alas!' replied Zelter, when the
question was put to him--'alas! it is nearly a hundred years since old
Father Bach died, and though his name lives, as all great names must
live, the majority of those who speak of him as a master are ignorant
of the works which made him great; they have forgotten, if, indeed,
they ever heard, the sound of the master's voice!'
Here, then, in the apathy manifested in regard to Bach's greatest
works, Mendelssohn found the stimulus that was needed. If only this
state of things could be changed, if only he might be permitted to
show the way to an understanding and appreciation of these priceless
treasures! Towards this great end something, at least, might be
accomplished by the force of example. As we have seen, he knew the
'Passion' music by heart, and he now proceeded to enlist others in a
study of the work. In a short time he had got together sixteen
carefully selected voices, and had arranged for his little choir to
meet once a week at his house for practice. It was a small beginning,
but his own enthusiasm soon infected the rest, and they all grew
deeply earnest in their work--so earnest, indeed, that ere long the
yearning had seized them for a public performance. The Singakademie
maintained a splendid choir of between three hundred and four hundred
voices. If only the director could be induced to allow a trial
performance to be given under Mendelssohn's conducting! Much as he
personally desired such a consummation of their labours, however,
Felix felt convinced that he knew Zelter only too well to indulge any
hopes that he would sanction so great an undertaking. Zelter had no
faith in the idea that public support would be given to a revival of
the 'Passion,' and Felix well knew that nothing would shake him in
this opinion. But this conclusion was strongly opposed by a prominent
member of the Garden-house choir, a young actor-singer named Devrient,
who insisted that Zelter ought to be approached on the subject; and as
he himself had been a pupil of Zelter, and possessed the gift of
eloquence in no small degree, he succeeded in persuading Mendelssohn
to accompany him on a visit to the director's house.
Accordingly, the pair set forth early one morning to brave the old
giant in his den, Mendelssohn haunted by a dread of the manner in
which their proposals would be received, and Devrient, who was to be
spokesman, keeping up a bold front, and assuring his friend that they
would ultimately succeed.
They found Zelter seated at his instrument, with a sheet of
music-paper before him, a long pipe in his mouth, and enveloped in a
cloud of tobacco-smoke. In response to his gruff inquiry, what had
brought them at so early an hour, Devrient unfolded his plan by
degrees, beginning by enlarging upon their admiration for Bach's
music, with a gentle reminder to Zelter that this taste had been
acquired under his own guidance, and proceeding to dwell upon the
progress of their studies and the yearning which they all felt for a
public trial of the work, and concluding with an eloquent appeal for
assistance from the Academy itself.
Zelter listened with an outward show of patience that was as
extraordinary as it had been unlooked for, but his eyes gleamed
through the clouds of smoke with a light that foreboded a speedy
outburst of his slumbering fires. Nevertheless, when he began to
speak, it was not to condemn the young men for their presumption, but
to point out that the difficulties in performing such a work at that
time were inconceivably greater than they had supposed. In Bach's
time it was different, the Thomas School could supply what was
necessary--the double orchestra, double chorus, and so forth; but now
such things were insuperable difficulties; nothing could overcome
them.
As he spoke he laid aside his pipe, and rising from his chair, paced
excitedly to and fro, repeating again and again: 'No, no; it is not to
be thought of; it is mad, mad, mad!' To Felix he looked the picture of
a shaggy old lion stirred up by his keeper. Still Devrient persevered.
He even ventured to say that they had considered those difficulties;
that they did not believe them to be insuperable; that they had
implicit faith in their own enthusiasm having the power to kindle the
like in others; and, finally, that with the Academy's co-operation
success must ensue.
Zelter grew more and more irritated as Devrient proceeded, and Felix,
observing the growing anger in his eye, plucked his companion by the
sleeve, and edged nearer to the door. At length the explosion came.
'That one should have the patience to listen to all this! I can tell
you that very different people have had to give up attempting this
very thing, and yet you imagine that a couple of young donkeys like
yourselves will be able to accomplish it!'
Felix by this time was at the door, feverishly beckoning to Devrient
to come away, but his friend refused to budge; he even began afresh.
He pleaded in his most telling tones that, inasmuch as it was Zelter
himself who had awakened their love for the master, the honour would
be to him quite as much as to themselves if his pupils succeeded in
bringing about this grand result, and how well-deserved and fitting a
crown this would be to his long career, this honour and testimony to
the greatness of Father Bach.
Felix opened his eyes wider in astonishment; but there could be no
mistake--the crisis had passed, and Zelter was visibly weakening; the
lion died out of his eyes, the pipe once more found its way to his
lips, and after many demurs, many arguments, much pacing up and down,
Zelter with a sigh of relief gave in. It was a noble surrender, for it
included a promise of all the help that he could give, and the young
enthusiasts quitted the lion's den triumphant.
'You are a regular rascal, an arch-Jesuit!' said Felix to his friend
as they descended the stairs.
'Anything you like for the honour of Sebastian Bach!' retorted the
other as they stepped out into the keen, wintry air.
How Mendelssohn grappled with this great work; how he threw into it
all the energy he possessed; how he mastered its every detail, and
gave it life; how, with infinite tact and patience, he made it a
living, dramatic masterpiece in the eyes of those who were to perform
it; how the rehearsals at the Academy were thronged by professionals
and amateurs desirous of realising its true nature and power; how at
length the first public performance of the 'Passion according to St.
Matthew' since the composer's death took place at the Singakademie,
with Mendelssohn conducting, on March 11, 1829, and how every ticket
was sold, and fully a thousand disappointed ones were turned away from
the doors--all this must be read elsewhere. Suffice it here to say
that this performance marked the beginning of a great revival--the
awakening throughout Germany and England of a love and appreciation of
Bach which has never since faded or diminished.
It was in connection with this work that Mendelssohn made the first
and only allusion to his Jewish descent. 'To think,' he remarked to
Devrient, with a look of triumph in his eyes as they were walking
together to the final rehearsal--'to think that it should have been
reserved for an actor and a Jew to restore this great Christian work
to the people!'
The excitement attending the performance, with its repetition on March
21, the anniversary of Bach's birth, had not subsided ere Mendelssohn
was engaged in taking leave of his dear ones prior to embarking at
Hamburg on his first visit to England. Several circumstances had
combined to render the present a favourable moment for undertaking the
journey. The Moscheleses, and another friend named Klingemann, who had
been a constant visitor at the Berlin house until called away to
occupy a London post, had assured him of a warm welcome; it was his
father's wish, shared by Zelter also, that he should travel, and he
for his own part was desirous of showing that he could support himself
by music. Abraham Mendelssohn had, indeed, designed this visit as the
first portion of a lengthened tour which would enable Felix to see
more of various countries, and assist him in choosing that which
offered the best opportunities for his life-work.
The London musical season was at its height when he arrived, but his
first letters home were chiefly occupied with descriptions of the city
itself, and how it had affected him. 'It is fearful! it is maddening!'
he writes to Fanny three days after he had settled into his Great
Portland Street lodgings.[30] 'London is the grandest and most
complicated monster on the face of the earth.... Things roll and carry
me along as in a vortex. Not in the last six months at Berlin have I
seen so many contrasts and such variety as in these three days....
Could you see me at the exquisite grand-piano which Clementi has sent
me for the whole of my stay here, by the cheerful fireside' (the open
grate fire was a novelty to one who had come from the land of closed
stoves), 'in my own four walls ... and could you see the immense
four-post bed in the next room in which I might go to sleep in the
most literal sense of the word, the many-coloured curtains and quaint
furniture, my breakfast-tea with dry toast still before me, the
servant-girl in curl-papers, who has just brought me my newly-hemmed
black necktie, and asks what further orders I have ... and could you
but see the highly respectable, fog-enveloped street, and hear the
pitiable voice with which a beggar down there pours forth his ditty
(he will soon be outscreamed by the street-sellers), and could you
picture to yourselves that from here to the City is three-quarters of
an hour's drive, and that in all the cross streets of which one has
glimpses the noise, clamour, and bustle are the same, if not greater,
and that after that one has only traversed about a quarter of London,
then you might understand how it is that I am half distracted!'
One needs to be something of an artist as well as of a poet to
appreciate London at her true worth, and Mendelssohn possessed both
qualities in no small degree; hence it is only natural that the
artistic and poetical aspects of our city should have appealed most
strongly to his sensitive nature. A few days later he writes: 'I think
the town and the streets are quite beautiful. Again I was struck with
awe when yesterday I drove in an open carriage to the City along a
different road and everywhere found the same flow of life ...
everywhere noise and smoke, everywhere the end of the streets lost in
fog. Every few moments I passed a church, or a market-place, or a
green square, or a theatre, or caught a glimpse of the Thames....
Last, not least, to see the masts from the West India Docks
stretching their heads over the housetops, and to see a harbour as big
as the Hamburg one treated like a mere pond, with sluices, and the
ships arranged not singly, but in rows, like regiments--to see all
that makes one's heart rejoice at the greatness of the world.'
The magnificence of a ball at Devonshire House reminds him of the
'Arabian Nights.' The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel were
present, and he describes the beauty of the girls dancing, the lights,
the music, the flowers, etc. 'To move among these beautiful pictures
and lovely living forms, and to wander about in all that flow of life
and universal excitement, perfectly quiet and unknown, and unnoticed
and unseen, to notice and to see--it was one of the most charming
nights I remember.' Again, of a fête held at the Marquis of
Lansdowne's, he says: 'That such magnificence could really exist in
our time I had not believed. These are not parties--they are festivals
and celebrations.'
In the mind of Mendelssohn, therefore, London struck a sympathetic
chord, and the pleasure which he felt on entering the city was
heightened by the warmth of the welcome which he received at the hands
of the musical public. His first appearance was at the Argyll Rooms,
in Regent Street, at a concert of the Philharmonic Society on May 25,
when his 'Symphony in C minor' was performed. He gives a full
description of the rehearsal and performance in his letter to Fanny:
'When I entered the Argyll Rooms for the rehearsal of my Symphony, and
found the whole orchestra assembled, and about two hundred listeners,
chiefly ladies, strangers to me, and when, first, Mozart's "Symphony
in E flat major" was rehearsed, after which my own was to follow, I
felt not exactly afraid, but nervous and excited. During the Mozart
pieces I took a little walk in Regent Street, and looked at the
people; when I returned, everything was ready and waiting for me. I
mounted the orchestra, and pulled out my white stick which I have had
made on purpose (the maker took me for an alderman, and would insist
on decorating it with a crown). The first violin, François Cramer,
showed me how the orchestra was placed--the furthest row had to get up
so that I could see them--and introduced me to them all, and we bowed
to each other; some, perhaps, laughed a little that this small fellow
with the stick should now take the place of their regular powdered and
bewigged conductor. Then it began. For the first time it went very
well and powerfully, and pleased the people much, even at rehearsal.
After each movement the whole audience and the whole orchestra
applauded (the musicians showing their approval by striking their
instruments with their bows and stamping their feet). After the finale
they made a great noise, and as I had to make them repeat it, because
it was badly played, they set up the same noise once more; the
directors came to me in the orchestra, and I had to go down and make a
great many bows. Cramer was overjoyed, and loaded me with praise and
compliments. I walked about in the orchestra, and had to shake at
least two hundred different hands. It was one of the happiest moments
within my recollection, for one half hour had transformed all those
strangers into friends and acquaintances. But the success at the
concert last night was beyond what I could ever have dreamed. It began
with the Symphony; old François Cramer led me to the piano like a
young lady, and I was received with immense applause. The Adagio was
encored; I preferred to bow my thanks and go on, for fear of tiring
the audience, but the Scherzo was so vigorously encored that I felt
obliged to repeat it, and after the finale they continued applauding,
while I was thanking the orchestra and shaking hands, and until I had
left the room.'
[Illustration: '_The success was beyond what I could have
dreamed._']
On another occasion, when he was to perform at a concert, he describes
how he went to the room early in order to try the piano, which was a
new one. He found the instrument locked, and dispatched a messenger
for the key. In the meantime he seated himself at another piano of
ancient aspect, and beginning to extemporise soon became lost in
reverie. The empty room, the 'old grey instrument which the fingers
of several generations may have played,' and the silence affected him
so deeply that he forgot the passing time, until he was reminded of
the approach of the concert hour by the people coming in to take their
seats. When, having first put himself into _grande toilette_--very
long, white trousers, brown silk waistcoat, black necktie, and blue
dress coat--he mounted the orchestra he felt nervous; a panic seized
him, for the hall was crowded, ladies even sitting in the orchestra
who could not get places in the room. 'But as the gay bonnets gave me
a nice reception, and applauded when I came ... and as I found the
instrument very excellent and of a light touch, I lost all my
timidity, became quite comfortable, and was highly amused to see the
bonnets agitated at every little cadenza, which to me and many critics
brought to mind the simile of the wind and the tulip-bed.'
A dinner-party followed the concert, and then he went to visit some
friends living out of town with whom he was to spend the night.
Finding no carriage to convey him, he set out to walk through the
fields in the cool of the evening. Can we not picture him crossing the
still meadows by a lonely path, meeting no one, the air redolent of
spring flowers, musical ideas floating through his mind--ideas which
there was nobody to hear, which nobody, perhaps, was ever destined to
hear, as he sang them aloud in the fading light, 'the whole sky grey,
with a purple streak on the horizon, and the thick cloud of smoke
behind him.'
Amidst the round of work and the pressure of invitations which made up
the sum of his daily life in London, the love of boyish fun, which
formed a wholesome counteraction to his serious moods, broke out every
now and then with its old accustomed force, eclipsing for the moment
the memories of stately dinner-parties and receptions. One night when
in company with two friends he was returning from what he terms 'a
highly diplomatic dinner-party' at the Prussian Ambassador's, where
they had taken their 'fill of fashionable dishes, sayings, and
doings,' they passed a very enticing sausage-shop in which some German
sausages were exposed in the window. A wave of patriotism overcame
them; they entered, and each bought a long sausage, and then the trio
turned into a quiet street to devour them, accompanying the meal with
a three-part song and shouts of laughter.
Mendelssohn's heart was easily touched by the distresses of others,
and when he learnt of the sufferings of those who had lost their all
in the floods in Silesia at this time, he set to work at once to
arrange a concert in their behalf. The 'Midsummer Night's Dream
Overture' formed one of the items of the programme--this being the
second occasion of its performance since his arrival. It was most
enthusiastically received, and, indeed, the whole concert was a great
success. The room was so besieged that no fewer than one hundred
persons were turned from the doors. Ladies who could not find seats in
the body of the hall crowded upon the orchestra, and Mendelssohn was
delighted at receiving a message from two elderly ladies, who had
strayed between the bassoons and the French horns, anxiously inquiring
'whether they were likely to hear well!' Another enthusiastic lady
esconsced herself contentedly upon a kettledrum. There could be little
doubt that the overture had secured a firm hold upon English hearts at
its first hearing. Jules Benedict, who was present on the occasion,
describes the effect upon the audience as electrical. At the end of
the first performance a friend who had taken charge of the precious
manuscript was so careless as to leave it in a hackney-coach on his
way home, and it was never recovered. 'Never mind,' said Mendelssohn,
when the loss was reported to him, 'I will write another.' And he sat
down at once and rewrote the score entirely from memory, and when the
copy was afterwards compared with the parts it was found that he had
not made a single variation.