The letters addressed by Felix Mendelssohn to my father came into my
possession in 1870. After Mendelssohn’s death, my father had carefully
arranged them in a special manuscript book, and had supplemented them
with an index of the contents and a table showing the dates of the
principal events in the life of his departed friend.
If I have abstained from giving publicity to these letters for so long a
time, it is because I thought such delay was in accordance with the
wishes of both writers. Many passages occur in which prominent musicians
of those days are unreservedly criticised,--passages which I felt as
little authorized to suppress as to publish during the lifetime of those
alluded to. I trust they will be none the less interesting now that time
has judged between the critics and those criticised. Nor did I feel
justified in omitting passages that may prove of less interest to the
general public than to a smaller circle; for they truly depict the warm
friendship which, in the course of years, ripened between Mendelssohn
and Moscheles, and they are thoroughly characteristic of the bright and
genial way in which Mendelssohn would express his personal feelings.
For a copy of my father’s letters to Mendelssohn, I am indebted to Prof.
Carl Mendelssohn, of Freiburg, the eldest son of the composer. From
these I have made extracts, or embodied their substance in a commentary,
where it seemed necessary to explain what Mendelssohn had written. To
give them in full I deemed undesirable, so much of similar
subject-matter from the pen of my father having already been made
public, notably in the “Life of Moscheles,” edited by my mother. This
biography is chiefly compiled from diaries extending over a period of
nearly sixty years, and faithfully reflecting his impressions on the
manifold incidents of his artistic career.
The letters addressed by Mendelssohn to my mother could, however, not be
omitted, although an English version of most of these appeared in print
some years ago. They accompany the letters to my father in chronological
order, and bear testimony to the warm regard which Mendelssohn
entertained for her, and which she so fully reciprocated. Although only
five years his senior, she was well fitted to be his guide and Mentor on
his entrance into London society; and he, on his side, was always ready
to take advice and friendly hints from his “grandmother,” as she would
call herself. Since that time half a century has gone by. She has become
a grandmother and a great-grandmother, surrounded by a bevy of
great-grandchildren; and now, in her eighty-third year, she is still
with us, active in mind and body, and, while cherishing the memories of
the past, ever ready to share in the joys and to join in the aspirations
of the present. And when she looks back on the long list of departed
friends, no figure stands out more brightly in her memory than that of
Mendelssohn; and we all, young or old, love to listen when she talks of
him.
I too have my recollections of him,--juvenile impressions, to be sure,
for I was not fifteen when he died; but none the less firmly are they
imprinted on my mind. Nor could it be otherwise. From earliest
childhood, I looked upon him as my parents’ dearest friend and my own
specially dear godfather, whose attention I had a right to monopolize,
whenever I thought my turn had come. I recollect waiting for that turn
more than once, while he was sitting at the piano with my father. When
it came, I had every reason to enjoy it. He really was a rare
playfellow, a delightful companion, not likely to be forgotten. A
certain race across the Regent’s Park; the tennis ball thrown into
immeasurable space; that pitched battle of snowballs, which appeared to
me second to none in the annals of warfare; his improvisation of a
funeral march, to which I enacted the part and exemplified the throes of
the dying hero,--all seem but things of yesterday. And then the drawing
of that troublesome hatchet!--to this day I am grateful to him for
helping me with that curve I could not get right. In fact, whether it
was play or lessons, my drawing or my Latin, he always took the most
lively interest in everything concerning me and my first steps along the
path of life,--the thorny path, I might add; for such it was on those
occasions when it led me away from the drawing-room in which he was the
ever-attractive centre,--when the hour struck which, according to cruel
practice, gave the signal for my discreet retirement. It is, however,
gratifying to me to remember that I occasionally proved refractory. One
evening, in particular, I successfully resisted, when Mendelssohn and my
father were just sitting down to the piano to improvise as only they
could, playing together or alternately, and pouring forth a
never-failing stream of musical ideas. A subject once started, it was
caught up as if it were a shuttlecock; now one of the players would seem
to toss it up on high, or to keep it balanced in mid-octaves with
delicate touch. Then the other would take it in hand, start it on
classical lines, and develop it with profound erudition, until, perhaps,
the two, joining together in new and brilliant forms, would triumphantly
carry it off to other spheres of sound. Four hands there might be, but
only one soul, so it seemed, as they would catch with lightning speed at
each other’s ideas, each trying to introduce subjects from the works of
the other. It was exciting to watch how the amicable contest would wax
hot, culminating occasionally in an outburst of merriment when some
conflicting harmonies met in terrible collision. I see Mendelssohn’s
sparkling eye, his air of triumph, on that evening when he had succeeded
in twisting a subject from a composition of his own into a Moscheles
theme, while Moscheles was obliged to second him in the bass. But not
for long. “Stop a minute!” said the next few chords that Moscheles
struck. “There I have you; this time you have taken the bait.” Soon they
would seem to be again fraternizing in perfect harmonies, gradually
leading up to the brilliant finale, that sounded as if it had been so
written, revised, and corrected, and were now being interpreted from the
score by two masters.
Bright and enjoyable as were such performances, they were by no means
the only ones that impressed me. In my father’s house there used to be a
great deal of music-making. “To make music” (_Musikmachen_) is a German
expression that covers a vast area of artistic ground. I should say it
meant: “To perform music, for the love of music.” That is certainly how
it was understood by the select little circle of musicians which
gathered round the piano in London, and later on in the Leipzig home.
Their motto was that which stood inscribed over the orchestra in the
Gewandhaus: “Res severa est verum gaudium.” High art to them was truly a
source of eternal joy. As I write now, I know full well that I was born
under a happy constellation; it was a happy name that Mendelssohn had
given me, and Berlioz was not wrong when, quoting the line of Horace, he
wrote in my album: “Donec eris _Felix_, multos numerabis amicos” (As
long as you are _Felix_, you will number many friends). But in those
days the fact that I was enjoying special privileges scarcely dawned
upon me. It was all a matter of course; to be sure, Mendelssohn or
Liszt, the Schumanns or Joachim, would come in and make music, and I
would listen devoutly enough many a time; but then, again, I could not
always follow my inclinations. There were my Latin and Greek exercises
to be done by to-morrow; and when such was the case, I might or might
not listen to what was going on in the next room, even if it happened
that Mendelssohn was playing and singing some new numbers just composed
for the “Elijah.”
The mention of my exercises reminds me of an incident truly
characteristic of Mendelssohn. It was on the evening of the 8th of
October, 1847, memorable to me as being the last I passed in his house.
He, Rietz, David, and my father had been playing much classical music.
In the course of an animated conversation which followed, some knotty
art-question arose and led to a lively discussion. Each of the
authorities present was warmly defending his own opinion, and there
seemed little prospect of an immediate agreement, when Mendelssohn,
suddenly interrupting himself in the middle of a sentence, turned on his
heel and startled me with the unexpected question: “What is the
_aoristus primus_ of τὑπτω, Felix?” Quickly recovering from my surprise,
I gave the answer. “Good!” said he; and off we went to supper, the
knotty point being thereby promptly settled.
But the sounds of mirth, as the chords of harmony, were soon to be
silenced. On the following day, the 9th of October, Mendelssohn was
struck down by the illness that proved fatal. He died on the 4th of
November.
Shortly afterwards I spent many an hour in the house that had been his.
Cécile Mendelssohn, his widow, carried her heavy burden with dignity and
resignation. The door of his study she kept locked. “Not a pen, not a
paper,” she says, in a letter to my father, “could I bring myself to
move from its place; and daily I admire in him that love of order which,
during his lifetime, you have so often noticed. That room must remain,
for a short time, my sanctuary,--those things, that music, my secret
treasure.”
It was with feelings of deep emotion that I entered that sanctuary, when
shortly afterwards Cécile Mendelssohn opened its door for me. I
possessed already much love for the study of painting; and now I had
asked and obtained permission to make a water-color drawing of that
room, while all yet stood as the master and friend had left it. There,
on the right, was the little old-fashioned piano, on which he had
composed so many of his great works; near the window was the
writing-desk he used to stand at. On the walls hung water-colors by his
own hand,--Swiss landscapes and others; to the left, on the bookcases
containing his valuable musical library, stood the busts of Goethe and
Bach; on the writing-table, the pen which but the other day was wet,
along with this or that object which I had so recently seen in his hand.
And as I sat working, doubts and misgivings arose in my mind. Was it not
profanation, I thought, to intrude with my petty attempt at painting,
where all was hushed in the silence of death? But I worked on, and my
thoughts were lost in my first great sorrow. Cécile Mendelssohn came and
went. Not a sigh, not a murmur, escaped her lips.
But enough. I close this hasty sketch, although yet many a color and
form arise in my memory to complete it. Sufficient has been said in
these pages, if between the lines there stands to read, that in editing
and translating the following correspondence I have been performing a
pleasant duty and a labor of love, and that I feel happy to share with a
larger circle of Mendelssohn’s friends and admirers the possession of
those letters which have so long been dear to me.
LONDON, _May, 1888_.