Meanwhile, near the end of 1840, he was prevailed on to accept a year's
engagement at Berlin, and lend his labor and his genius to certain high
artistic schemes of king Frederick William IV. Taking leave of Leipsic
with a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion Music, he became
Kapellmeister to the King. The first fruit of that was his noble music to
the _Antigone_, and afterwards the _Œdipus Coloneus_ of Sophocles; and in
another vein, the _Athalie_ of Racine. It was also by the king's request
that he wrote the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ music, into which the early
overture fitted as if pre-ordained, and his both beautiful and wildly
melodramatic setting of Goethe's _Walpurgisnacht_. Not far from the same
time he was moved to make an overture, more dramatic than any of his early
ones, to _Ruy Blas_.
[Illustration: MENDELSSOHN ON HIS DEATH-BED