his friend Klingemann to Scotland, his keen sense of perception
drinking in all the variety and charm which the tour presented, and
his genius supplying a musical setting to whatever struck him as
specially beautiful. The ruined chapel attached to the old Palace of
Holyrood, seen in the twilight, with its broken altar at which Mary
received the Scottish crown, overgrown with grass and ivy, and its
mouldering, roofless pillars, with patches of bright sky between, gave
him the first inspiration for his Scotch Symphony. But it was the
Hebrides which, in their lonely grandeur and bleakness, affected him
most of all. Of Iona, with its ruins of a once magnificent cathedral,
and its graves of ancient Scottish Kings, he writes that he shall
think when in the midst of crowded assemblies of music and dancing. Of
Staffa, again, with its strange, basaltic pillars and caverns, he
says: 'A greener roar of waves surely never rushed into a stranger
cavern--its many pillars making it look like the inside of an immense
organ, black and resounding, and absolutely without purpose, and quite
alone, the wide, grey sea within and without.' How deeply the Hebrides
impressed him he shows by a few lines of music added to his letter,
which he says were suggested to him by the sight of these lonely
sister isles. Later on this very piece of music formed the opening to
his 'Overture to Fingal's Cave.'
How thoroughly music entered into his daily life and permeated his
thoughts, we may know from his habit of seating himself at the piano
in the evening, and improvising music to express what he had both
_seen_ and _felt_ throughout the day. To Mendelssohn music was a
natural language by which he could express, in the most perfect
manner, the emotions which had been aroused by reading or by the
contemplation of Nature. Thus, when he went from Scotland to North
Wales to stay with some friends named Taylor, he wrote for Susan
Taylor a piece called 'The Rivulet,' which was a representation of an
actual rivulet visited by them in their rambles. Again, Honora Taylor
had in her garden a creeping plant (the _Eccremocarpus_), bearing
little trumpet-shaped flowers, and Mendelssohn was taken with a fancy
for inventing the music which the fairies might have been supposed to
play on those tiny trumpets. The piece was called 'A Capriccio in E
minor,' and when he wrote it out he drew a branch of the plant all up
the margin of the paper. For another member of the family he wrote a
piece which was suggested by a bunch of carnations (his favourite
flower) and roses arranged in a bowl, and he put in some arpeggio
passages to remind the player of the sweet scent rising up from the
flowers.
Felix had just returned to London, and was contemplating an early
departure for Berlin, when an injury to his knee, the result of a
carriage accident, compelled him to lie up for several weeks, and
hence to forego a pleasure to which he had been looking forward with
feelings of eager affection. Shortly before he left home Fanny's
engagement to William Hensel, a young painter of promise, had received
her parent's sanction, and it had been confidently expected that Felix
would return in time for the marriage. The disappointment caused by
the accident was therefore keenly felt both by himself and those at
home. Hensel was clever, and by no means a stranger to the gatherings
at the Gartenhaus; but his entry into the select and innermost circle
of the brotherhood, armed with the kind of right which his engagement
to Fanny had conferred upon him, caused him to be regarded in a new
light, and it was not until a little time had elapsed that he found
his way to their hearts by his gentle ways, assisted in no small
degree by his pencil. At first the exclusiveness of a set which had
received the title of 'The Wheel,' and which prided itself on the
freemasonry which obtained amongst its members, was somewhat chilling;
but Hensel was not easily discouraged; he took to drawing the members'
portraits as his contribution to the bonhomie of the circle, and with
such success that 'The Wheel' soon came to regard him as an
indispensable spoke, whilst the portraits multiplied until they formed
a huge collection. Fanny's marriage, moreover, did not imply any break
in the family circle, for when her brother returned to Berlin he found
that Hensel and his bride had taken up their residence in the
Gartenhaus.
The grand tour had practically only begun, and was now to be resumed,
but the visit to England was exercising over Mendelssohn's mind a
strong influence which, though not unconnected with the success and
fame it had brought to him, might with more justice be ascribed to the
sympathetic appreciation and kindness which he had received at the
hands of the English. 'A prophet is not without honour, save in his
own country,' and Berlin had so far held back the encouragement that
strangers were so willing to accord him. Moreover, for one of his
artistically sensitive temperament London possessed a magnetic charm
that was lacking in Berlin. At home his very youth seemed to count
against him, but in London it was, if anything, in his favour. The
fame of his visit, however, had preceded him to Berlin, and shortly
after his return he was offered the Professorship of Music at the
University, an honour which he at once declined, feeling that its
acceptance would not only interfere with his freedom in composition,
but bind him down to an occupation which he confessed was not his
forte. This Chair had been specially created in the hope that he would
fill it, and it marks the first, though by no means the last, attempt
on the part of the Berliners to secure his services for their city.
In the May following he set forth once more on his travels, bound for
Venice, Florence, and Rome. He could not pass through Weimar, however,
without paying a visit to Goethe; it proved to be the last meeting,
and it was filled with incidents that left a deep impression on his
mind. Never had the sympathy and friendship between the two been
closer or more confidential than on this occasion. 'There is much in
my spirit that you must light up for me,' said Goethe to Felix one day
when they had been conversing together. Goethe called upon him
continually for music, but showed an indifference towards Beethoven's
works; Felix, however, insisted that he must endure some of the
master, and played to him the first movement of the 'C minor
Symphony.' Goethe listened for a few moments, and then said: 'That
does not touch one at all; it only astonishes one.' But Felix played
on, and presently, after some murmuring to himself, the poet burst out
with: 'It is very great, it is wild! It seems as though the house were
falling! What must it be with the whole orchestra!'
The tour was a long one, for several cities had to be visited before
he could cross the Swiss frontier. Each day brought its full measure
of incident and delightful sight-seeing. It was in Switzerland,
however, that Mendelssohn's passionate love for Nature was stirred to
its depths. His Alpine walks were a revelation of Nature in her most
decided moods, and one particular walk over the Wengern Alp was
destined to be long remembered. The mountain summits were glittering
in the morning air, every undulation and the face of every hill clear
and distinct. Formerly it was their height alone that had impressed
him, 'now it was their boundless extent that he particularly
felt--their huge, broad masses; the close connection of all those
enormous fortresses, which seemed to be crowding together and
stretching out their hands to each other.'
He loved all beautiful things, but he loved the sea best of all; it
seemed to him to express in its varying moods every feeling which he
himself possessed. 'When there is a storm at Chiatamene,' he wrote to
Fanny when she was visiting Italy, 'and the grey sea is foaming, think
of me.' And now as he approached Naples, and saw the sea sparkling in
the sunlit bay, he exclaims: 'To me it is the finest object in Nature!
I love it almost more than the sky. I always feel happy when I see
before me the wide expanse of waters.' Again, the ancientness of
Nature herself conveyed far more to him than any legend of antiquity
connected with the works of man; he could not feel in 'crumbling mason
work' the interest and fascination that existed for him in the
unchanged outlines of the hills, or in the fact that the waves lapped
the island which formed the refuge of Brutus, and the lichen-covered
rocks bent over them then just as they did now. These were monuments
on which no names were scribbled, no inscriptions carved, and to such
he clung.
Yet in Rome itself he found a centre of unending interest and
fascination. 'All its measureless delights lay as a free gift before
him; every day he picked out afresh some great historic object: one
day a ramble about the ruins of the ancient city, another day the
Borghese Gallery or the Capitol, or else St. Peter's or the Vatican.
So each day was one never to be forgotten, and this sort of dallying
left each impression firmer and stronger. If Venice seemed like the
gravestone of its own past, its ruinous, modern palaces and the
enduring remembrance of a bygone supremacy giving it a disquieting,
mournful impression, the past of Rome struck him as history itself;
its monuments ennobled, and made one at the same moment serious and
joyful, for there was joy in feeling how human creations may survive a
thousand years and yet possess their quickening restoring, influence.
Each day some new image of that past imprinted itself on his mind, and
then came the twilight, and the day was at an end.'
The tour was not completed until the spring of the following year
(1832), and during that interval two sad notes had been struck--the
first being the death of Edward Ritz, the young violinist, Felix's
closest friend, from whom he admitted that he had taken the model of
his delicate, musical handwriting; and the second that of Goethe. In
connection with the latter loss Felix felt deeply for Zelter, for he
knew how the old man had worshipped and leant upon the master-poet.
'Mark my words,' said Mendelssohn, when he received the sad
intelligence, 'it will not be long now before Zelter dies!' The words
were but too prophetic, for in less than two months from the day on
which they were spoken Zelter had followed the master he loved so
well.
Before the latter event happened, however, Mendelssohn had returned to
London. His affection for the City had now become a settled part of
his nature. Even amidst the sunshine of Naples, with the glittering
sea before his eyes, he had longed for London. 'That smoky nest is
fated to be now and ever my favourite residence,' he writes; 'my heart
swells when I think of it.' Even with the love he felt for those who
were awaiting his return to the Berlin home it must have been hard for
him to tear himself away from London, where his genius and his
attractive personality found recognition at every turn. Consequently
it is not surprising that he should have found his way back to his
'smoky nest' before very long--this time accompanied by his father. It
was Abraham Mendelssohn's first visit, and it served to bring out more
clearly than ever the closeness of the bond which united them. Felix
nursed his father through an illness of three weeks' duration with a
tenderness and solicitude that called forth a touching tribute from
the patient. 'I cannot express,' writes Abraham to Leah, 'what he has
been to me, what a treasure of love, patience, endurance,
thoughtfulness, and tender care he has lavished on me; and much as I
owe him indirectly for a thousand kindnesses and attentions from
others, I owe him far more for what he has done for me himself.'
Two years later Mendelssohn was mourning the loss of this parent,
whose sudden death had cast a deep gloom over a time when everything
seemed to promise happily for the young composer. Only a month before
the sad event Felix had joined the home-party at Berlin, and the house
had once more assumed the full and complete life of its earlier days.
The merriment, the joyous laughter were as hearty and resounding as
they had been of yore, and there the father and mother had sat
watching the fun--Abraham by this time quite blind, but keenly
interested in all that was going on. Now the first definite break in
that happy circle had come, shutting out the past for ever!
The extraordinary fullness which characterised Mendelssohn's life--'he
lived years whilst others would have lived only weeks,' was the true
remark of one who knew him well--reminds us of the impracticability of
giving anything like a complete description of even its chief
incidents. The stage at which our story has arrived does not, it is
true, show him at the pinnacle of his fame as a composer, but if we
entertained any doubts as to his greatness or his popularity at this
time, we have only to imagine ourselves present at the scene which was
being enacted on a certain afternoon in May, 1836, in the music-hall
at Düsseldorf to be assured on both of these points. The long,
low-pitched room is filled with an excited and enthusiastic audience
applauding with all their might and main, for the first performance of
Mendelssohn's oratorio 'St. Paul' has just come to an end. Amidst the
roars of applause the ladies of the chorus have risen from their
seats, and, advancing to the spot where Mendelssohn stands bowing his
acknowledgments to the audience and orchestra, they shower garlands
upon him, and then to complete the display they place a crown of
flowers upon the score itself.
Some time before this event the town of Düsseldorf had claimed his
services as director of music, and a little later Leipzig had followed
suit--the latter event marking the beginning of a connection fraught
with results of the highest importance to the musical world, and of
much happiness to Mendelssohn himself. It was at this period that he
composed many of those charming part-songs, intended for performance
in the open air, that have since become such recognised favourites; of
these we need only recall 'The Hunter's Farewell' and 'The Lark' as
examples. But the time is marked for us in even clearer notes than
these, for to this era belong several of his 'Songs without
Words'--those melodies which have grown into our hearts never, we may
well believe, to be uprooted. Mendelssohn not only invented the title
'Lieder ohne Worte,' but also the style of composition itself. Sir
Julius Benedict remarks that 'at this period mechanical dexterity,
musical claptraps, skips from one part of the piano to another,
endless shakes and arpeggios, were the order of the day.' Mendelssohn,
however, would never sacrifice to the prevailing taste; his desire was
to 'restore dignity and rank to the instrument,' and he accordingly
wrote what Sir Julius aptly describes as these 'exquisite little
musical poems.'
The year of which we are speaking was productive of the deepest
happiness to Mendelssohn, for it was that of his engagement to Cécile
Jeanrenaud, the beautiful daughter of a French Protestant clergyman,
whose acquaintance he had formed whilst on a visit to Frankfort. In
the following spring they were married, and thus began for both a new
life replete with happiness. In Cécile Felix found one who, out of her
loving, gentle nature, could give him the sympathy and support that he
needed, whilst she in turn received from her husband the fullest
return that a grateful and sensitive heart, obedient to the promptings
of a love that never wavered in its steadfastness and devotion, could
bestow. No home life could have been happier, none more simple in its
give and take of affection, than that of Mendelssohn and his wife;
nothing transpired to destroy or even to obscure for a moment the halo
of romance which surrounded it from the beginning, and which rendered
it from first to last a marriage of love.
A picture of Mendelssohn at this period of his life shows us a short,
slightly-built figure, with the dark, Jewish type of face, high
forehead surmounted by thick, black, wavy hair, and dark brown eyes
full of fire and animation, which we have already described as
marking his appearance as a boy. The mouth was delicate and sensitive,
the corners frequently curved into a smile. The change of expression
in the eyes when playing, or stirred by any deep emotion, was most
striking; 'they would dilate and become nearly twice their ordinary
size, the brown pupil changing to a vivid black.' His lithe, muscular
frame showed expression in all its movements corresponding with the
actions of the mind; when he thoroughly agreed with a speaker he
nodded so vigorously as to bring the black curls down over his face;
his laughter was ringing and hearty, and merriment found added
expression in the doubling up of his body and the shaking of his hand.
His hands were small, with sensitive, tapering fingers, and when
playing the fingers acted as if endowed with separate life and
intelligence. There was no effeminacy connected with his lovable
nature; he was quick to resent meanness or deceit, or wrong-doing of
any kind. His anger was exceedingly sharp, and his manner of
expressing contempt an astonishing revelation to those who had failed
to grasp his character as a whole.
Despite his love of hard work no one more thoroughly enjoyed being
lazy when there was nothing to do. Sleep was his never-failing
resource when overtaxed--the power of compelling sound, refreshing
sleep at the moment when it was most needed was one of the most
remarkable traits of a temperament distinguished by its astonishing
activity. Yet it may be taken perhaps as a part of his orderly nature,
which in everything was governed by method. The completeness with
which he carried out every detail connected with his work or his
amusements excites our wonderment; the sense of neatness pervades the
whole--nothing is wanting. He wrote numberless letters, many of them
containing descriptions of scenery and incident such as entitle them
to rank as literary productions--yet there is not the slightest
evidence of haste or carelessness; even the writing itself is artistic
in its delicacy and finish. He received countless letters, and he
preserved them all by pasting them into scrapbooks kept for the
purpose. The same scrupulous care is observable in the writing of his
musical manuscripts, and no fewer than forty-four volumes of these
works, constructed by his own hands, are preserved in the Imperial
Library at Berlin. His talent for drawing was considerable, and his
love for the pursuit enabled him to accumulate a large collection of
finished works, in every one of which is exhibited the same
painstaking care and accuracy with regard to detail. Finally, we must
mention his devotion to his family. No more loving father could have
been found than Mendelssohn was to his children; he entered into their
games and lessons with the same eager desire to add to their
enjoyment, or to ease their labours, as he displayed towards the
greater world outside his home.
We must now hasten to record an event which was destined to stamp
Mendelssohn's career with undying fame--the completion of his oratorio
'Elijah.' This, his greatest work, owed its inspiration to a short
passage in the book he reverenced most of all. One day his friend
Hiller found him deep in the Bible. 'Listen,' he said, and then he
read in a gentle, agitated voice the passage from the First Book of
Kings, beginning with the words, 'And behold, the Lord passed by.'
'Would not that be splendid for an oratorio!' he exclaimed; and from
that moment the idea began to grow in his mind. And as it grew he saw
it in a clearer, brighter light, until, when the spring of 1846
arrived, the work was all but completed. In a letter to Jenny Lind,
the famous singer and his intimate friend, he writes: 'I am jumping
about my room for joy! If it only turns out half as good as I fancy it
is how pleased I shall be!'
[Illustration: '"_Would not that be splendid for an
oratorio!_"']
The years intervening between the inception of this great work and its
completion had brought no little anxiety and strain connected with his
arduous labours, and they had brought one deep sorrow, the loss of his
mother, whose death had been as sudden and unexpected as that of the
father. Honours had been bestowed upon him by royal hands--the King of
Prussia had personally conveyed to him his wishes that he should
assume the directorship of music in Berlin, and when Mendelssohn found
himself unable to retain the position he had begged him to reconsider
his decision; the King of Saxony had made him Capellmeister to his
Court; and last, but not least, he had received at the hands of Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert such marks of personal regard and esteem as
must have served to endear him more than ever to the country which had
been foremost in recognising the greatness of his genius.
Those years, too, had witnessed the fruits of his unceasing labours
for the advancement of his art in those centres over which his
personal influence extended. Leipzig under him had become a musical
centre to which young students and composers flocked, in order to
obtain his opinion and guidance in respect to their work, or even, in
many cases, to place themselves for a time where his methods could be
studied and his personality enjoyed at the same time. Amongst others
came William Sterndale Bennett, filled with enthusiasm, to profit by
his advice, and to find in the master a kind and generous friend. Nor
should we omit to mention, amongst the numerous offshoots of his
labours, the foundation of the Conservatorium of Music at Leipzig, a
scheme entirely due to his initiative, and which under his fostering
care developed into one of the first academies of the day. Lastly,
amidst the whirl of work he found time to carry out a project which he
had for long cherished--the erection, at the threshold of the Thomas
School at Leipzig, of a monument to the memory of Sebastian Bach.
On the morning of Wednesday, August 26, 1846, the Town Hall of
Birmingham presented a scene of unusual animation. A huge crowd was
entering its doors and taking possession of the phalanx of chairs
occupying the floor of the building. In the gallery every seat had
been taken an hour earlier, and very soon every eye was directed
towards the conductor's desk in expectation of Mendelssohn's
appearance. Eager anticipation was in the air, for this day was to
witness the first performance of 'Elijah' under the baton of the
composer, who had thus elected to submit his greatest work to the
judgment of an English audience.
'At half-past eleven o'clock,' wrote one who was present on the
occasion, 'a deafening shout from the band and chorus announced the
approach of the great composer. The reception he met with on stepping
into his place from the assembled thousands was absolutely
overwhelming, whilst the sun, emerging at that moment, seemed to
illumine the vast edifice in honour of the bright and pure being who
stood there, the idol of all beholders.' The applause which broke
forth at the end of the first part gave a sufficient indication of the
impression which the audience had formed of the work, and at the
conclusion the enthusiasm was such that the entire assembly rose to
their feet, and shouted and waved for several minutes.
It was over, and Mendelssohn's gratification at his reception was
expressed in the letter which he wrote to his brother Paul the same
evening: 'No work of mine ever went so admirably at the first
performance, or was received with such enthusiasm both by musicians
and the public as this.... I almost doubt if I can ever hear one like
it again.'
In April of the following year four performances of the 'Elijah' took
place at Exeter Hall under his conductorship, the Queen and Prince
Albert gracing the second performance with their presence. This was
destined to be his last visit to these shores, and when he departed,
after fulfilling a round of engagements which tried his strength to
its uttermost limits, it was with the haunting shadow of coming
illness. Scarcely had he rejoined his family at Frankfort than a
messenger brought the sad intelligence that his sister Fanny had died
suddenly at Berlin; the news was broken to him all too suddenly, and
with a loud shriek he fell to the ground in a swoon.