[Footnote A: At this age he had written two operas and almost completed a
third,--six symphonies, a quartet for piano and strings, a Cantata, six
fugues for the piano, a psalm for four or five voices with a double fugue,
and many minor pieces.--K. K.]
We begin with the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ Overture, in which the lad
of sixteen sprang into fame a masterly composer. Well had he read his
Shakespeare,--the bard who fascinates the heart and soul of childhood
before any child can be supposed to understand him! What a felicitous
reproduction of the fairy element in tones! The perfect fairy overture,
it is still heard with delight by old and young, and ever will be,
it is so fresh, spontaneous, genuine, such an honest emanation from
the enthusiastic heart and imagination of the boy composer. The
other movements now commonly sung and played with the drama were the
afterthought of Mendelssohn's riper period, when he was thirty-four years
old. Schumann says: "His music is a meditation on the play, _a bridge
between Bottom and Oberon_, without which the passage into Fairy Land is
almost impossible." The same fairy vein, the same dainty elfin motives,
or some of the same family, are met in many of the earlier and later
works of Felix. That vein haunted him; it was a lucky string to play
upon. Ballad movements, Canzonettas, _Volkslieder_, and the like quaint
melodies, abound as well. The Overture is numbered Op. 21. Sketched or
completed about the same time were the Octet, Op. 20, the first set of the
Songs without Words, and the first Quintet, in A; all works of ripe and
finished art of a clearly asserted, pronounced individuality. These mark
the culmination of his youthful period.
His early piano efforts are in many forms, mostly with strings. He wrote
three Sonatas for piano solo, but soon ceased to cultivate that field (in
face of Beethoven?). But he had already opened a new and original field
for himself, albeit a less ambitious one, in the Songs without Words, a
field to which he returned _con amore_ from time to time until late in
his short life. One is tempted to describe some of these choice little
tone-poems, were there room; at least the three Gondola Songs. Had he been
reading Shelley:
"My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which like a sleeping swan doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing."
These perhaps express the daintiest, most exquisite of the many moods
and themes poetic, sentimental, picturesque, or wideawake and stirring
or heroic, in these eight and forty wordless songs. Perhaps the last two
sets have not quite the verve of the earlier and more spontaneous numbers.
But think of the _Volkslied_, the hunting and the martial strains, the
deeper meditations, the _Duet_, above all the exhilarating "Spring Song"
in A! In these, if in nothing else, he opened a new field in musical
art, in which many followed him, but none approached him. These _Lieder
ohne Worte_ are of his most genuine, most individual inspirations. There
is hardly a characteristic trait of the composer's style, as developed
in his larger works, which you do not find here clearly announced and
pronounced in these perfect little miniatures. In them we have the whole
of Mendelssohn,--we mean of the innate, the essential, not the acquired
music of the man. If to some they have come to look commonplace, it is
their own radiance that veils them.
Of his many other piano compositions, the most important are the
Six Preludes and Fugues, Op. 35; another in E minor, full of fire
and strength, his contribution to the Album "Notre Temps"; and the
_Variations Sérieuses_. All the great composers, notably Beethoven, were
fond of writing variations. Those of Mendelssohn are full of character,
and often figure to advantage in the artistic programmes of pianists. For
the piano with strings, the two Trios are the most interesting, and still
challenge the chamber-concert givers. The two Sonatas with 'Cello also
hold their own.
He loved to employ the piano with orchestra. The brilliant _Capriccio_ in
B minor, and the Rondo in E flat, swift as an arrow and going as straight
to the mark, are concert favorites; still more the _Serenade_ and _Allegro
Giojoso_, full of life and charm. But most important, masterworks indeed,
are the two Concertos. That in G minor, by the very fascination of its
beauty, and by being such a model in form, so clear and pure throughout,
has been practised so much in conservatories, and played at the début of
so many callow virtuosos, that a shade of commonplace has settled over
it. The other, in D minor, keeps itself more select, so that for the more
exacting taste it is publicly too seldom played.
And, speaking of Concertos, we must not forget the one for the violin,
which surely ranks only after that by Beethoven, and is attempted by
all the violinists. Its charm is never failing. The fine intensity of
the impassioned Allegro has something feminine and far reaching in its
quality, so that it was a rare pleasure to hear it interpreted by such
an artist as Camilla Urso, with such true nervous grasp and accent. The
middle movement seemed divine; and the finale, heralded by the brass _ff_,
is so uncontainable and full of fire, so brilliant and impetuous, that
it admits of being taken at the most rapid tempo. It is perhaps the most
popular of all violin concertos.
All the great masters have written string quartets. The Quartet for two
violins, viola and 'cello, corresponding to the four essential parts
in harmony, each maintaining its individuality, yet each essential to
the whole, is the quintessence of musical expression. Any imperfection
betrays itself inevitably; all is exposed; there is nothing hidden
under an orchestral coloring or vague passages of mere effect. The four
voices are four persons. Not to speak of Haydn, father and founder of
the race, the greatest models are those of Mozart and Beethoven. Those
of Beethoven often seem like foreshadowings in outline of later phases
in his larger grand creations. Those of Mendelssohn are less purely
quartet-like. They have more of a singing quality,--a melody with an
accompaniment,--and seem to seek orchestral development. The early one
in E flat is of highly impassioned character, and might be distinguished
as the _Quartet Pathetique_. It has a pathetic introductory _Adagio_,
followed by a passionate _Allegro_; then a _Canzonetta_, a quaint minor
strain in the spirit of some sad old _Volkslied_ or Ballad; then an
_Andante_ of profoundest melancholy; then a bold finale, in 12-8, running
in very rapid triplets. The three Quartets of Op. 44 are in a riper
style. But the first begins with a swift and fiery _Allegro_, of which
the theme is strikingly symphonic, and which has been well said to be not
quartet-writing at all, but a melody with a bass and a mere filling-in of
middle parts; not a conversation between four distinct individualities.
The Mendelssohnian ardor, depth of feeling, yearning aspiration, with
all his grace, facility, and clearness, pervade these quartets; but more
perfect as quartets are his part-songs for mixed and for male voices. His
last quartet, in F minor, written just after the death of his beloved
sister Fanny, so soon before his own, has spontaneous unity in all its
movements. It is said to have been written in forty-eight hours, in one
close closeting with grief.
Of the two Quintets, that in A, of the juvenile period, is fresh, bright,
full of life and charm, having a lovely _Andante Intermezzo_, and an
elfin _Scherzo_. The much later one, in B flat, by the irrepressible and
soaring impetus of its _Allegro vivace_,--challenge bravely answered in
the _finale_,--by the sad ballad-like _Andante scherzando_ in D minor; and
by its profoundly, grandly beautiful _Adagio_, is perhaps more popular and
always welcomed with sincere delight.
There remains the Octet, written just before the Midsummer Night's Dream.
It is not a double quartet, two quartets reinforcing or offsetting
one another; but it is a conference of eight real parts, eight
individualities. The _ensemble_, especially the fiery opening _Allegro_,
has the richness and fullness of an organ's diapasons, and naturally
abounds in contrapuntal imitation to keep eight such parts employed. It is
laid out on the broad scale of a symphony, with great contrast between its
several movements, especially between the airy-light, crisp _staccato_ of
its _Scherzo_ (forerunner of the fairy overture) and the grand sweep and
rush, like a freshet, of the _Presto_ finale. The work bears performance
by all the strings of an orchestra, and is not seldom so presented.
We come now to his poetic, fascinating Concert Overtures, already ushered
in by Shakespeare's fairy wand. Three of these date shortly after the
Midsummer Night's Dream. The finest of them is the first, scored in
Rome a year or two after his visit to the Hebrides, the outgrowth of an
attempt to convey to his sister Fanny, in a piano sketch, his impressions
of the "lonely island." The overture is often called "Fingal's Cave."
It does not deal in literal description. It is not realistic. It is the
feeling of the scene, subjectively conceived. The leading theme (B minor)
suggests the dreamy reverie of one leaning over the water, absorbed in its
commingling, fluctuating, mystic ebb and flow. The same poetic spirit sang
the _Gondellieder_. In the strong answering motive you feel the wild force
of the waves dashing on the rock-bound shores; loud calls give the sense
of distance; you hear cries of sea-birds; while all bespeaks the watery
atmosphere, the solemn silence and the mystic solitude of ocean.
Then came _Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt_,--a reproduction as Overture
of two sea-pictures from two little poems of Goethe; the first conveying
the sensation of a dead calm at sea; then the rising of a breeze, the
boatswain's whistle, the setting of sails and swinging round of the huge,
heavy hulk, the addressing itself to motion, making smooth, gallant
headway (with ever and anon great, deep, mysterious sighs!) and entering
port amid a triumphal blaze of trumpets. It is a wonderfully graphic
and imaginative reproduction of the subjects. The instrumentation is as
telling and artistic as the thematic working. The introduction of the
piccolo and of the deep serpent and contrafagotto conveys a sense of
illimitable height and depth.
The third, to "the Fair Melusina," Felix tells his sister, he wrote for an
opera of Conradin Kreutzer's, based on Tieck's _Mährchen_, which he saw at
a theatre. He disliked Kreutzer's music, especially the Overture, which
was encored, and he resolved to write another "which the people might not
encore, but which would cause them more solid pleasure." It is romantic
music in the fullest sense. In the two contrasted themes,--the first (in
F) watery, cool and rippling, tempting one beneath the waves,--the other
(F minor) chivalric, heroic, proud, impatient,--he clearly had in view
the princess Melusina (supposed to be a mermaid in the hours denied to
her lord), and the brave knight who weds her. Schumann says it revives
"those fables of the life deep down beneath the watery abyss." How bright
and beautiful the mingling colors of the instruments! With what fine
contrapuntal unity in variety the imitation and development proceeds!
More to the humor of to-day, perhaps, is his much later powerfully
dramatic Overture to _Ruy Blas_. It is exciting, with bold contrasts,
fraught with impending tragic crises, clear, strong, concise, and very
effectively instrumented. Not so great as Beethoven's _Coriolanus_
overture, it is his nearest approach to that, and shows that Mendelssohn
was capable of something more impassioned, concentrated, fateful, than
dreams of fairyland, breathings of sentiment and reproductions of romance.
Now for his Symphonies. First, his greatest, in A minor, which is supposed
to owe its inspiration to his recollections of Scotland. In its wild,
tender, melancholy melody and coloring, its romantic, breezy, sea-shore
character, it has affinity with the _Hebrides_ overture. How deep and
tender the introductory _Andante con Moto_, 3-4! And how charmingly the
kindred _Allegro_ melody, 6-8, sets out from it and runs so smoothly and
so rapidly, most of the way in octaves between the first violins and low
clarinet tones! How it winds in and out among the instruments, now quiet
and individual, now borne along upon the swelling, roaring tide of the
whole orchestra! How it keeps its sweet, sad, minor mood, relieved only
by one little bit of sunshiny major! Then, after the repeat, what wild,
strange, sea-shore modulations, the cool, mysterious thrill of ocean and
the Infinite! And when again those shuddering modulations cross the smooth
mirror, the excitement swells to a furious climax, and all the strings
rush up and down the chromatic scale with a tremendous vehemence; and it
all dies down again, till only flutes and reeds are left streaming in
the air, sliding leisurely down tone by tone, and leading back to the
_Andante_. Compare this exciting climax with one correspondingly placed in
the seventh symphony of Beethoven; if it has not that Promethean fire that
could defy Olympus, is it feeble in comparison?
In the _Scherzo_ the scene shifts to sunny playfulness. Vividly the
laughing theme leaps out from voice after voice; the instruments seem to
speak, as Schumann says, like men. What hurrying, huddling gleesomeness
in the accompaniments, like the tiny waves that crowd up round the spot
where the fountain's column falls! In hushed _staccato_ the strings
whisper a new motive, which is taken up by all and developed, with
fragments of the laughing theme; and there seems to be a pointed allusion,
fond and playful, to a characteristic of Scotch melody, in that emphatic
mocking of the cadence of a minor third! It floats sportively away, in
the violins, against a skyey background of oboe and horn tones, charming
the soul away with it in pleased forgetfulness, when with a sudden
revulsion of consciousness we are in the minor chord of D (like a great
sob, escaping involuntarily), leading with solemn, stately measure and
a sound of warning into the _Adagio_ in A, 2-4, a most lovely, deep and
tender movement, in which the orchestra seems to sing a Psalm of Life....
Upon this bursts, like a flash of sunshine over the sombre water, the
_Vivacissimo_, a most dashing, brilliant theme, pausing anon to let a more
pensive melody of reeds be heard; but with rough, impatient vehemence
the basses break off the episode, and the bacchic frenzy of the movement
storms itself away again, until its force is spent, and the quiet naïve
little reed theme gets another chance and runs fondling and chatting
along in duet between bassoon and oboe, and the strain sinks to sleep
as in the fairy overture. The short finale, in A major, is in kindred
melody and rhythm with the first _Allegro_, but with a bold and swaggering
carelessness of movement, as of a party breaking up and marching off from
a glorious carouse, to the tune (at least its spirit) of "We won't go home
till morning!"
After the immortal nine of Beethoven, there is no Symphony more perfect
in form than this, of charm more enduring, although we have the great
one of the "heavenly length" in C by Schubert, and such noble ones by
Schumann. But Mendelssohn has the advantage over Schumann in point of
instrumentation and of general clearness (the importance of clearness was
a mooted point between the two friends and mutual admirers).
Even more enjoyable in some respects is the "Italian" Symphony in A.
It was written earlier than the so-called third, the "Scotch," and is
commonly numbered the fourth. Both were well advanced before he left
Rome. Its movements are finely contrasted. After the fresh, sunshiny,
buoyant _Allegro_, calling up the blue, blue sky and boundless green of
Italy,--brought out all the more vividly by the pensive Mendelssohnian
subjectivity of the low-running _staccato_ of the violins which sets in
right after the announcement of the bright first theme,--how impressive
is the sombre, solemn, antique-sounding, steady chant of reeds in the
_Andante_, with the soft, warm gush of mingling flutes above! It is like
passing from Italian noon-day into the rich gloom of some old church. The
tranquil, blissful melody of the _Minuet_ flows on in limpid, peaceful
beauty; and the mellow horn Trio makes a delicious episode. In the
_Saltarello_ we feel the rush and whirl of Carnival, not without a dash
of Mendelssohnian melancholy. The passage from that into the yet wilder
_Tarantella_, with its whirling triplets, indicates the very _abandon_ and
delirium of excitement, whereas the former, by the hitch in the alternate
triplet, denotes a dance in which the dancer still keeps some control upon
himself.
[Illustration: MENDELSSOHN.
Painted by Th. Hildebrand. Engraved by E. Eichens.
This portrait was probably made in 1835, Mendelssohn being at that time in
his twenty-sixth year.]
The "Reformation Symphony" (No. 5) dates back almost to his juvenile
period. It was written at the age of twenty-two. With the exception of
one bright gem, the _Scherzo_, it seems to labor under the proverbial
fatality of _occasional_ works. As a Symphony it is exceptional in form,
consisting really of only two parts, with a refreshing interlude between.
The first part, in which the idea of the Old, the frowning Catholic faith,
predominates, includes the _Allegro_ with its short _Andante_ prelude. The
second part, the triumph of the New, with its curious variations on the
Lutheran Choral, "_Ein' feste Burg_," has likewise its short _Andante_
prelude, whose rather feeble prayer for peace it answers. Suppose a
curtain dropped between the two parts, while for interlude and recreation
we are vouchsafed that happy _Scherzo_.--But it is hardly fair to count
this early effort into his symphonic period, any more than the Symphony
"No. 1," in C minor, which bears date 1824.
From Symphony to Oratorio we have a noble bridge in the Symphony-Cantata
"_Lobgesang_" or "Hymn of Praise." It is of later date, to be sure, than
the oratorio _St. Paul_, and was composed to celebrate the invention of
the art of printing, and to lend _éclat_ to the inauguration of the statue
of Guttenberg, at Leipsic, June 25, 1840. Many regard it as the most
felicitous and most inspiring of his larger works, although prompted by an
"occasion"! Praise and gratitude to God for LIGHT; the waiting and longing
for it through the long darkness of the middle ages; then the break of
day; the free career and joy of a redeemed humanity; and first and last
and everywhere the Praise of God: such were the themes and promptings
of Mendelssohn's heart and genius when he composed the _Lobgesang_. The
three orchestral movements which prepare the chorus are essentially
symphonic. From the first trombone proclamation of the pregnant choral
motive, through the rapidly unfolding, fiery, complex _Allegro_; through
the sweet, sad (almost over-sweet) tune (as of "the heart musing, while
the fire burns," yet with a slight flutter) of the middle movement,
_Allegretto_, and its alternations with the cheery, choral-like full
chords of the wind; to the last deep-drawn sigh of the rich, soulful
_Adagio_, it is pure symphony, all leading up to the superb outburst of
the irrepressible chorus of Praise. Thenceforth we breathe the mountain
air of oratorio. The work is too familiar to require description. Enough
to note the innate strong dramatic tendency of Mendelssohn, as shown in
the middle point and climax of the work, the thrilling scene beginning
with the anxious Tenor recitative; "Watchman, will the night soon pass?"
with fitful, wild accompaniment; the startling Soprano answer: "The night
is departing," flooding all with instant light; and then the blazing
outburst of full chorus, taking up the words in an exciting fugue.--It is
surely an inspired, a master-work, both instrumentally and vocally.
Of his two great Oratorios proper,--the greatest certainly since
Handel,--the one most esteemed among musicians is the earliest, _St.
Paul_, produced in 1836. It shows the influence of Bach throughout, in the
frequency of narrative recitative; in the use made of the Lutheran Choral;
in the introduction of turbulent Jewish people's choruses (_turbae_);
and in a generally dramatic conception and shaping of the whole. It
stands between a Bach _Passion_, and the more epical Handel Oratorio.
Depth of religious feeling and great dignity of style pervade the entire
composition. The music is contrapuntal, never dry and pedantic. The
overture is of quite a different character from his concert overtures; it
is a solemn, contrapuntal, sacred prelude, with the old-school profundity,
yet genial and interesting enough to serve as a good concert piece by
itself. The orchestral resources throughout are carefully husbanded,
after the way of Mendelssohn, to the great gain of true and clear
effect, affording room for great variety of coloring. He relies on the
intrinsic strength of his ideas, rather than on a noisy over-fulness of
instrumentation.
The choruses range from grand, uplifting ones to others very lovely and
tender; others mob-like and vindictive, like "Stone him to death"; again
others of a vivid local coloring, like those in which the Gentile crowd
worship Paul and Barnabas, "O be gracious, ye Immortals," etc., full
of light-hearted, sensuous Greek adoration, of "oxen and garlands" and
ear-tickling flutes. The arias are characteristic, heartfelt, deeply pious
melodies. _St. Paul_ is the oratorio which is most sure to gain, at every
hearing, on a serious and truly music-loving listener.
_Elijah_, most popular of oratorios (after the _Messiah_), and most
familiar, requires even less comment. Description or analysis would bore.
The subject began to occupy his mind in 1838. It was finished for the
Birmingham Festival of 1846, where, himself conducting, it was received
with utmost enthusiasm. Yet it did not satisfy himself, and he at once
set about revising and polishing. This was but a year before his death.
When he returned to England for the last time to conduct it, the Prince
Consort addressed him as another Elijah "faithful to the worship of
true Art, though surrounded by the idolators of Baal." In greatness and
variety of poetic and imaginative design, in wealth of musical ideas, in
ripeness of consummate musicianship, in sure calculation of effects, it is
a full expression of the composer's genius. It abounds in numbers which
captivate alike refined and simple listeners. It betrays the dramatic
element in the opening picture of the drought relieved and culminating in
the wonderful "Rain" chorus; in the episode of the Widow who has lost her
son; in the scene between the Prophet and the wicked Queen; in the Baal
choruses, secular, impatient, boastful, impotently clamoring for miracle;
in the sweet soliloquy and meditation of Elijah in the wilderness; in
his ascension in the fiery chariot; and more or less in all the great
choruses, all very graphic. Then what lovely restful choruses, like "He
watching over Israel," followed by the perfect Angel Trio: "Lift thine
eyes"! And arias full of meaning and of exhortation, like the soprano
"Hear ye, Israel," in composing which, beginning with the high F sharp,
his mind was haunted by that note as he had heard it in the voice of Jenny
Lind!
Judging from the few fragments published, his unfinished oratorio
_Christus_ would have been his greatest sacred composition. From the first
part, the Birth of Christ, we have the Trio of the Magi, teeming with
wonder and anticipation; then the chorus: "There shall a star come forth,"
which has a sweet, pure, star-like beauty, ending with the choral: "_Wie
schön leuchtet der Morgenstern!_" From the second part, or Passion, the
tenor narratives, the accusing choruses before Pilate, terribly dramatic,
especially the multitudinous echoes of "Crucify him," and the inexorable
pronunciamento: "We have a sacred Law," bring him into still closer
affinity with Bach; and even more so the exquisitely plaintive weeping
chorus at the end.
[Illustration: Reproduced from Frontispiece to E. Devrient's "My
Recollections of Mendelssohn." Sculptor's name not given.]
Much might be said of his one Catholic work, the _Lauda Sion_, composed in
1846 for the feast of Corpus Christi at Liège, very beautiful in spite of
the dry dogmatic Latin text, strange text for him! Much, too, of the three
Motets for female voices; of the Hymn: "Hear my Prayer," with its soaring,
bird-like soprano solo: "O for the wings of a dove!" of his masculine,
strong settings of eight or ten of the Psalms, mostly for chorus with
orchestra, with their Old Testament flavor; and of numerous smaller sacred
compositions.
Of course so sensitive a nature, subject to many moods, quick to take
impressions and to turn them into music, was prolific in songs with piano
accompaniment. From his earliest composing days, at intervals throughout
his life, he produced sets of _Lieder_ and duets, to the number of
ninety or more. They are all musical, refined, full of feeling, some of
them strikingly original; but before the few great ones of Beethoven,
the numberless songs of Schubert, those of Schumann, and above all
Robert Franz, they retreat into the shade. Yet they have been favorites
in musical homes and concert rooms, especially in England, where they
introduced the love of German song, tempting many feeble imitators, while
awakening there some worthier responses from the kindred spirit, Sterndale
Bennett.
More truly original, with more marrow in them, and more of the enduring
quality, are his four-part songs, both for mixed and for male voices.
These have been the staple and the best material on which the Liedertafeln
all over Germany, and the part-song clubs of England and America have
built. After more pretentious, ingenious, sensational part-songs of later
origin, it is always refreshing to hear one of them; for they are sincere
music, thoroughly artistic, with heart and soul and poetry in them. With
them we may mention several larger pieces for male chorus, such as he
composed to Schiller's Ode "To the Artists," with accompaniment of brass.
The exhortation of the music is worthy of the poem; male choirs feel well
when they lift their voices in a strain so manly and so edifying.
We come now to a lofty form of choral and orchestral music, which we owe
to Mendelssohn. In setting two of the Greek tragedies of Sophocles he had
no old Greek music for a model. The spirit of the dramas lay in the text
of Sophocles. He had read the _Antigone_ in the Greek, and so far got his
inspiration at first hand. He took the suggestion from Frederic William
IV., King of Prussia, during a summer residence in Berlin in 1841. The
peculiar function of the Chorus in the Greek tragedies, as a mediator
between the actors and the audience, commenting in some sort of rhythmical
chant upon what was passing on the stage, and the sublimity of some of
those choruses, make us feel that there could not have been a truer
artistic idea than that of setting them to music, realizing and carrying
out their vague embryonic musical aspiration as it could only be realized
in these modern times after music had become an art. Mendelssohn's
inspiration seems to have sprung congenially from that of Sophocles; and
this music is of the freshest, manliest, most original and vigorous that
he has left.
_Antigone_ was the first experiment. He composed it in eleven
days:--Overtures, single and double choruses for male voices, with full
orchestral accompaniment for all that are lyrical in subject; melodramatic
bits, as where Antigone descends into the vault; and chords here and
there making expressive background to the spoken verse. The piece was
first played on the royal stage at Potsdam; and afterwards on the King's
birthday before a select audience, the venerable Tieck presiding. When it
was given at Leipsic, a meeting of "learned Thebans" signed an address
to Mendelssohn, thanking him "for substantially reviving an interest
in the Greek tragedy." The music has since made its mark everywhere,
whether given on the stage with action, or only sung and played in concert
rooms,--at Athens in the original Greek. Nobler men's choruses are never
heard than that rich, sweet, pensive moralizing one which sings of man's
wondrous faculties and limitations; or that superb hymn to "Bacchus"
(double chorus),--as full of pomp and splendor as the Wedding March,--in
which the composer gave free rein to his enthusiasm; or the opening
invocation to "Helios."
_Oedipus at Colonos_ he composed at Frankfort in 1844, about the time when
he began to finish _Elijah_, and write the Violin Concerto and the music
to _Athaliah_. A favorite with the men's Choral clubs is the chorus which
recounts the beauties of Colonos and the glories of Athens. The music is
wonderfully faithful to the ever kindling enthusiasm of the words.
The Mendelssohn Greek choruses are far beyond and above the ordinary
part-song, which is a much smaller, humbler affair,--simply, as its name
denotes, a _song_, harmonized in four parts. But these are themes worked
up, for single and double choir, with as complete art as the choruses in
great oratorios, only avoiding the Fugue form, which is Gothic, Christian,
suggestive of the Infinite, not Greek.
Racine's _Athalie_, often called his greatest drama, is constructed after
the old Greek model, with choruses similarly employed. Mendelssohn's music
for it, compared with _St. Paul_ and _Elijah_, the _Lobgesang_, or the
Greek plays, must to many seem monotonous, in some parts dry and tame. The
musical work, bound by the text, lacks climax. Yet there is much beautiful
and some majestic, splendid music in it. Has it a Jewish, as its congeners
a Greek flavor? The overture is very noble, with the two parts finely
contrasted.
During the last years of his life the dramatic tendency in Mendelssohn,
which we have traced all along through so many of his works in many forms,
from his child operettas in his father's house to the _Walpurgis Night_,
grew upon him with an irresistible momentum. His deep interest in Jenny
Lind (Goldschmidt), who was his ideal of a singer, and to whom he became
a most devoted friend, led him as the last musical problem of his life
to write an opera for her in which she was to take the principal rôle in
London. That was _Die Lorelei_, a theme as legendary and romantic, while
more poetic and more inviting to music, than the monster Norse mythology.
The composition was cut short by his early death. The fragments which he
left of the unfinished work are of such rare excellence, that one wonders
what might have been, had that ideal been achieved! Might not the German
theatre have then possessed an opera, a lyric drama, which would have
forestalled the paradoxical solution of the problem which so many, whether
musical or not, appear so overready to accept? And how long will the
fashion hold?
Greatly unlike in temperament, in character, in quality of genius, in
outward circumstances and environment, largely, too, in their ideal aim
and tendency, Mendelssohn and Schumann seem to be destined to be thought
of together. They lived at the same time, and were intimate associates and
friends in Leipsic. Each had the warmest admiration for the other. The two
together were a double morning-star in music; yet "one star differeth from
another star in glory." Opinions will not soon agree which in his works is
the more significant or glorious, which the more potent and far-reaching
influence. We do not discuss the point. If the sweetness of Mendelssohn's
music does sometimes cloy; if with all the strength of his orchestral
works, his oratorios and Greek plays, with all the Jewish masculinity
of his Psalms, his male choruses and his part-songs, one feels the
feminine, the sentimental minor vein predominate upon the whole; if his
struggles with his formidable art-problems were less Titanic than those of
Beethoven, and consequently his triumphs less complete; if his resolution
of the discord was a joy less absolute, less wholesome and perennial (for
with Beethoven Joy, joy--_Freude_--is ever the last word,--Joy as of the
gods, admitting of no surfeit, no corruption), still there is no denying,
except by some weak caprice of fashion, the essential greatness of the
composer Mendelssohn. The most serious deduction to be made is, that he
was to a certain extent imitable. Swarms of imitators sprang up, both in
his own country and in England. Hence a certain sense of sameness began to
attach to his music,--a sameness not fairly chargeable to the master, but
to the imitators, with whom it was too easy to confound him, or through
their fog to see him falsely. Well might he have said: "Save me from my
friends!"
[Illustration: MENDELSSOHN'S LAST PLACE OF RESIDENCE IN LEIPSIC.