* * * * *
On his return to Leipzig he resumed his work with untiring energy; on
the 22d of May of the following year (1836) he conducted the first
performance of his Oratorio, “Saint Paul,” at the Düsseldorf Festival;
he next went to Frankfurt to take the direction of the Saint Cecilia
Choir, in place of his friend Schelble, who was incapacitated through
illness. Here he first met that other Cecilia who was henceforth to
become his guiding star, and who was eventually to exchange her name for
his. They were engaged on the 9th of September, Mendelssohn’s mother
communicating the welcome news to the Moscheles family.
* * * * *
FRANKFURT, July 20, 1836.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--It is an age since I wrote to you last; but it was a
monotonous age, and I was not in a mood to write about it or anything
else. Besides, you know that however much time passes without your
hearing from me, there is not a day that does not in some way or other
bring me nearer to you or remind me of your friendship, your work, and
your life so beneficial to us all. I have not yet thanked you for that
good kind letter of yours which reached me through Klingemann at the
Music Festival, with your congratulations on its success. How the
Oratorio went off you have heard long ago. There was much that pleased
me at the performance, and much that dissatisfied me; and even now I am
at work on certain parts of the pianoforte arrangement, which is to
appear shortly, and on the orchestral score, so much is there that
completely fails to express my idea,--in fact, does not even come near
it. You have often advised me not to alter so much, and I am quite aware
of the disadvantages of so doing; but if, on the one hand, I have been
fortunate enough to render my idea in some parts of my work, and have no
desire to change those, I cannot help striving, on the other hand, to
render my idea in other parts, and, if possible, throughout.
But the task begins to weigh heavily upon me, as I am gradually more and
more attracted by other work, and I wish I could look back upon the
Oratorio as finally completed. Well, I hope in two months, at the
outside, to send you the P. F. arrangement. But where will you be then?
What a thing it is to be separated by land and sea! I hear a great deal
about you and your work through people coming from London, and I read
about it in the musical papers; besides, you write occasionally, and so
does Klingemann; but if I compare all that with our meeting in Leipzig,
or with those days in England, when it was a matter of course that I
should know how you spent every morning and afternoon, then
letter-writing does appear a very poor substitute. I suppose you will be
going to the seaside on the English coast. I, too, am ordered
sea-bathing, and shall have to swallow the bitter pill of a regular
cure, and go in about a fortnight to Scheveningen, or rather to the
Hague, where I can live quietly away from the bathing community, and
drive out every morning to the sea for my ablutions. In the first days
of September, when the Subscription Concerts begin, I must be back in
Leipzig.
I wish I could finish a few Symphonies and that sort of thing in the
course of the year, and more still I long to write an Opera; but of that
I am afraid there is not the least prospect. I am looking in vain
throughout all Germany and elsewhere for some one to help me realize
this and other musical plans, and I despair of finding him. It is really
absurd to think that in all Germany one should not be able to meet with
a man who knows the stage and writes tolerable verses; and yet I
positively believe there is none to be found. Altogether, this is a
queer country. Much as I love it, I hate it in certain respects. Look at
the musical men of this place, for instance; their doings are quite
shameful. Considering the size and importance of the town, there is
really a fair muster of excellent musicians, men of reputation and
talent, who might do good work, and who, one would think, would do it
willingly; so far that is the good side of Germany, but the fact is,
they do nothing, and it were better they did not live together, and
grumble, and complain, or brood over their grievances till it’s enough
to give one the blues. Ries is by this time in England, I suppose; he
considers he does not meet with due appreciation, and finds fault with
the musicians, and yet does nothing to improve them. Aloys Schmidt takes
his ease in the country, sighs over mankind in general,--a poor race at
the best, full of envy and malice,--forgetting all the while that he,
too, belongs to it. Hiller is here just now. People discuss wildly
whether he is a great pianoforte-player or not, but they don’t go to
hear him, and fancy that makes their judgment all the more impartial; so
he, too, is leaving for Italy. The only man who succeeds is Guhr, who
knows least and isn’t good for much; but he has a will of his own, and
enforces it _bon gré, mal gré_, and the whole town lives in fear of him.
But all that is bad, and the German Diet should interfere; for where so
many musicians congregate in one place, they ought to be forced by the
authorities to give us the benefit of a little music, and not only their
philosophical views about it.
What have you been composing, and what are your plans for the autumn? I
am anxious, too, to know how you have treated your scoring of the Bach
Concerto. Taubert has, I suppose, been drowned in the whirl of pianists,
and was little noticed. It could scarcely have been otherwise; I always
thought he had not much talent. Thalberg, whom you portray so admirably,
I should like to hear again; he must have developed wonderfully.
And do you know that my Oratorio is to be published in London, at
Novello’s, and that his letter about it dropped from the skies into my
hands the other day? And do you know, also, that Rossini, with Pixis,
Francilla, the Swedish composer Lindblad, and the Polish straw-fiddler
Gusikow, have all been through Frankfurt? But I must leave off writing
and chatting. Good-by; best love to wife and children, and don’t forget
Yours,