* * * * *
Mendelssohn came, this time with his father, christened, played, and
conducted, and otherwise kept his word. His first present to his
godchild was an autograph album, which he inaugurated with the two
pencil drawings reproduced here. The first represents the house in which
the Moscheleses lived,--No. 3 Chester Place, Regent’s Park. Moscheles
himself is supposed to be looking out of the window of his
dressing-room. The second is a view taken in the Regent’s Park close to
the house. Musically, too, he consecrated the album by a composition,
the well-known Cradle Song in B flat, written for the occasion.[20]
In the course of years the pages of the little book have been covered
with souvenirs from the pens and pencils of such friends as were not
unworthy of inscribing their names next to that of the “genius”
godfather; it is doubly valued by its possessor, for the interesting
autographs it contains, and for the pleasant echoes of the past which it
awakens.
On the occasion of a visit to the Portsmouth Dockyard, Mendelssohn’s
father met with an accident, injuring his leg, and at first there seemed
some cause for anxiety. This, however, was soon removed, and nothing
but patience was required to insure complete recovery. Much music too
must have been prescribed, for we find Mendelssohn and Moscheles
constantly at the piano in the patient’s room. Amongst other works a
collection of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fugues, which Mendelssohn had
brought with him, was perused and studied with the greatest interest.
The note upon the next page accompanied a certain Fugue which
Mendelssohn had copied out for Moscheles; he is supposed to hold the pen
for some of the inmates of the Zoölogical Gardens, which he and
Moscheles had visited in the afternoon.
On one occasion he sent the humorous invitation we reproduce.[21] On
another occasion he insisted on having a regular card of invitation,
which he filled in as given in our illustration.[22]
Notwithstanding the numerous calls upon his time, Mendelssohn found
leisure to make a pianoforte duet arrangement of Moscheles’s Septet.
Speaking of this in a subsequent letter, Moscheles says: “I have
recopied your arrangement of my Septet, and treated several passages
more freely than you, with your usual discretion, had done; at the same
time I have taken your hint, and added twelve new bars in the first part
and altered two towards the end.”
Of the many notes that passed between Great Portland Street and Chester
Place, we transcribe a few.
[Illustration: 9. Fac-simile of Note from the Zoölogical Gardens. (See
page 70.)]
* * * * *