Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

“ Every one who is in earnest with regard to Art, must indeed mourn with you, for in him a true genius has passed away, a genius that only required life and health to be developed, and to be a source of joy and pride to his family, and a benefit to Art. How very superior many of these works are to those we every day see, even by better musicians, and how there shines forth, in every part, a striving after progress, and the promise of a genuine vocation, along with the most perfect development! ”

“ You wish me to write operas, and think I am unwise not to have done so long ago. I answer, place a right libretto in my hand, and in two months the work shall be completed, for every day I feel more eager to write an opera. I think that it may become something fresh and spirited, if I begin it now; but I have got no words yet, and I assuredly never will write music for any poetry that does not inspire me with enthusiasm. If you know a man capable of writing the libretto of an opera, for Heaven's sake tell me his name, that is all I want. ”

“ Reichardt, Berlin. Leipzig, February, 1847.
Dear Madam,
When I meet any one who knew my Father, and who loved and esteemed him as he deserved, I immediately look on such a one as a friend, and not as a stranger, and a meeting of this kind always makes me glad and happy. As you no doubt feel the same, I trust you will excuse the liberty I take in addressing you. I wish to relate to you how touched and delighted the friends of music in Leipzig were yesterday by the composition of your father; we felt as if his spirit were still living and working among us, and indeed it is so. ”

“ I intend to call again at Lucerne for your next letter, and then I am off to the West, and out of Switzerland. I shall take leave of it with deep regret. The country is beautiful beyond all conception; and though the weather is again odious,—rain and storms the whole day, and all through 261 the night,—yet the Tellen Platte, the Grütli, Brunnen and Schwytz, and the dazzling green of the meadows this evening in Unterwalden, are too lovely ever to be forgotten. The hue of this green is most unique, refreshing the eye and the whole being. ”

“ The scenery round Frankfort pleases me this time beyond everything,—such fruitfulness, richness of verdure, gardens and fields, and the beautiful blue hills as a background! and then a forest beyond; to ramble there in the evenings under the splendid beech-trees, among the innumerable herbs and flowers and blackberries and strawberries, makes the heart swell with gratitude.
Yesterday afternoon I visited André at Offenbach; he sends you his kind regards, and is the same fiery, eager person he ever was. ”

“ For an hour and a half previously, one voice alone had been heard chanting almost without any variety; after the pause came an admirably constructed chord, which has the finest possible effect, causing every one to feel in their hearts the power of music; it is this indeed that is so striking. The best voices are reserved for the Miserere, which is sung with the greatest variety of effect, the voices swelling and dying away, from the softest piano to the full strength of the choir. No wonder that it should excite deep emotion in every heart. ”

“ I often cannot understand how it is possible to have so acute a judgment with regard to music, without being yourself technically musical; and if I could express, what I assuredly feel, with as much clearness and intuitive perception as you do, as soon as you enter on the subject, I never would make another obscure speech all my life long. I thank you a thousand times for this, and also for your opinion of Bach. I ought to feel rather provoked that after only one very imperfect hearing of my composition, you at once discovered what after long familiarity on my part, I have only just found out ”

“ I went to the very furthest end, whence there was indeed a wonderful coup d'œil. Through the spiral columns of the high altar, which is confessedly as high as the palace in Berlin, far beyond the space of the cupola, the whole mass of the catafalque was seen in diminished perspective, with its rows of lights, and numbers of small human beings crowding round it. When the music commences, the sounds do not reach the other end for a long time, but echo and float in the vast space, so that the most singular and vague harmonies are borne towards you. ”

“ The question is then solely what is felt and experienced within a man’s own breast, and uttered from the depths of his heart, be it grave or gay, bitter or sweet,—character and life are displayed here; and in order to prevent existence being dissipated and wasted when brilliant and happy—or depressed and destroyed when the reverse—there is but one safeguard—to work, and to go on working. So, for your sake, I have only one wish, that you may bring to light what exists within you, in your nature and feelings, which none save yourself can know or possess. ”

“ On such a life as that of Felix Mendelssohn, it is good for every one to look, for once, genius is not set forth as a dazzling screen to hide and to excuse disorder and crime, but genius, that one great gift from heaven, was employed as heaven would have directed it, each action, each succeeding year of his life, bringing forth in various but harmonious ways, that extraordinary moral and intellectual worth, that rare beauty of character that endeared him to all who knew him, ensured him the unvarying love of kindred and friends, and the admiration of the whole world. ”

“ I infinitely prefer our German homeliness and torpor and tobacco-pipes, though, indeed, I can’t say much in their favour since the recent events in Hanover, in which I am deeply interested, though I grieve to say they do not exhibit our Fatherland in a pleasing aspect; so that neither here nor there is life at present very enjoyable: therefore we ought the more heartily to thank God, that within the domain of art there lies a world far removed from all besides; solitary, yet replete with life, where refuge is to be found, and where we can feel that it is well with us. ”

“ Below, on the Danube, which runs very rapidly here, darting with the speed of an arrow through the pontoon bridge, lay a new steamer, that had just arrived, laden with strangers; then the extensive view of the flat but wooded country, and meadows overflowed by the Danube; of the embankments and streets swarming with human beings, and mountains clothed with Hungarian vines—all this was not a little strange and foreign. Then the pleasant contrast of living in the same house with the best and most friendly people in the world, and finding novelty doubly interesting in their society. ”

“ To Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Leipzig, October 29th, 1837.
Dear Brother,
First of all, my most cordial congratulations on the day when this letter will reach you; may you pass it happily, and may it prove a good harbinger of the coming year. You mention in your letter of yesterday, that your quiet, settled and untroubled position sometimes makes you almost anxious and uneasy; but I cannot think you right in this feeling; as little as if you were to complain of the very opposite extreme. Why should it not be sufficient for a man to know how to secure and to enjoy his happiness? ”

“ It is the old tragedy of the Past and the Present, a problem I never can solve. Lively Naples is indeed a pleasant contrast; but it is painful to see the crowd of wretched beggars who waylay you in every street and path, swarming round the carriage the instant it stops. The old white-haired men particularly distress me, and such a mass of misery exceeds all belief. If you are walking on the sea-shore, and gazing at the islands, and then chance to look round at the land, you find yourself the centre of a group of cripples, who make a trade of their infirmities ”

“ That I am now to recommence a private life, but at the same time to become a sort of school-master to a Conservatorium, is what I can scarcely understand, after my excellent vigorous orchestra here. I might perhaps do so if I were really to enjoy an entirely private life, in which case I should only compose and live in retirement; but the mongrel Berlin doings interfere; the vast projects, the petty execution, the admirable criticism, the indifferent musicians, the liberal ideas, the Court officials in the streets, the Museum and the Academy, and the sand! ”

“ Outside thick snow is falling, and the wind raging and blustering. We are eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, and a long tract of snow to traverse, but here I am! Nothing can be seen; all day the weather has been dreadful. When I remember how fine it was yesterday, while I earnestly wish that it may be as fine to-morrow, it reminds me of life, for we are always hovering between the past and the future. ”

“ I extort the time for writing music, otherwise I could not go on from day to day, but I cannot find leisure to write letters.
We have had recently a bitter heavy loss to bewail,—that of my dear Mother. I intended to have written in a gay mood all through this letter, and not by a single word to allude to anything, that by its melancholy nature might disturb your happiness, but I feel that I must write this to you, otherwise all that I say would appear mere hypocrisy. ”

“ There are villas on every height, and decorated old walls, with sloping terraces of roses and aloes, flowers and grapes and olive leaves, the 44 sharp points of cypresses, and the flat tops of pines, all sharply defined against the sky; then handsome square faces, busy life on the roads on every side, and at a distance in the valley, the blue city.
So I drove confidently into Florence in my little open carriage, and though I looked shabby and dusty, like one coming from the Apennines, I cared little for that. ”

“ How gladly would I write an opera; but far and near I can find no libretto and no poet. Those who have the genius of poetry cannot bear music, or know nothing of the theatre; others are neither acquainted with poetry nor with mankind, only with the boards, and lamps, and side scenes, and canvas. So I never succeed in finding the opera which I have so eagerly, yet vainly striven to procure. Each day I regret this more, but I hope at last to meet with the man I wish for this purpose. I have also written a good deal of instrumental music of late, chiefly for the piano, but others besides ”

“ As from time to time every evil seems to accumulate, as it did during my winter in Paris, where I lost some of my most beloved friends, and never felt at home, and at last became very ill; so the reverse sometimes occurs, and thus it is in this charming country, where I am once more amongst friends, and am well, and among well-wishers, and enjoy in the fullest measure the sensation of returning health. Moreover it is warm, the lilacs are in bloom, and music is going on: only imagine how pleasant all this is! ”

“ You must not suppose that I ever act in any affair but from my own conscientious impulses, far less in a matter in which I myself and my happiness are so very closely involved. Believe me, that in general, I invariably strive to do and say nothing but what I hold to be right in my conscience and instinct, and it is a proof that we have, alas! lived much asunder, and only met in days of enjoyment, and not of work, when you fear that I am easily swayed, not only in conversation, but in action. ”

“ Let me know what you have recently composed and are now composing; your mode of life in Berlin, and your plans for the future; in short all that concerns your musical life, which will be of the greatest interest to me. Probably this will be obvious in the music you have so kindly promised me, but fortunately both may be combined. Have you hitherto composed nothing on a greater scale; some wild symphony, or opera, or something of the kind? I, for my part, feel at this moment the most invincible desire to write an opera, and yet I have scarcely leisure even to commence any work, however small. ”

“ Formerly I used positively to hate all speculators in art, but now I feel chiefly compassion for them, because I see so few who are at rest; it is a never-ending strife for money and fame, and the most superior talents, as well as inferior ones, join in it. Highly as I esteem X——, I am by no means sure that he would not make shipwreck on this rock, and even if he did not lose the brightest part of his genius, he would certainly have to deplore the best part of his life and happiness ”

“ In a word, I rejoice at the prospect of my return to Germany; everything there is indeed on a small scale, and homely, if you will, but men live there; 322 men who know what art really is, who do not admire, nor praise, in fact who do not criticize, but create. You do not admit this, but it is only because you are yourself among the number.
I beg you will not however think that I am like one of those German youths with long hair, lounging about listlessly, and pronouncing the French superficial, and Paris frivolous. ”

“ But, jesting apart, I can only imagine music when I can realize the mood from which it emanates; mere artistically correct tones to suit the rhythm of the poetry, becoming forte when the words are vehement, and piano when they are meek, sounding very pretty, but expressing nothing,—I never yet could comprehend; and still such is the only music I can discover for this poem. Neither forcible, nor effective, nor poetical, but only supplementary, collateral, musical music. ”

“ I can scarcely ever compose here in winter, and when I ask myself after the greatest excitement, what has really occurred, it is in fact scarcely worth naming; at least it does not interest me much whether the acknowledged good works are given a degree oftener, or a degree better, or not. The only things that interest me are new compositions, and of these there is a great lack; often therefore I feel as if I should like to retire altogether, and not conduct any longer, but only write; and yet such a regular musical life, and the duty of directing it, has a certain charm too. ”

“ And there is also the enchanting, vapoury vision of the Alban hills, which change their hues like a chameleon, as you gaze at them,—where you can see for miles little white chapels glittering on the dark ground of the hills, as far as the Passionist Convent on the summit, and whence you can trace the road winding through thickets, and the hills sloping downwards to the Lake of Albano, while a hermitage peeps through the trees. The distance is equal to that from Berlin to Potsdam, say I as a good Berliner; but that it is a lovely vision, I say in earnest. No lack of music there ”

“ Naples seems to me too small to be called properly a great city; all the life and bustle are confined to two large thoroughfares—the Toledo, and the coast from the harbour to the Chiaja. Naples does not realize to my mind the idea of a centre for a great nation, which London offers in such perfection; chiefly indeed because it is deficient in a people: for the fishermen and lazzaroni I cannot designate as a people, they are more like savages, and their centre is not Naples, but the sea. ”

“ You strive to distinguish the ceiling as little as the canopy of heaven. You lose your way in St. Peter's, you take a walk in it, and ramble till you are quite tired; when divine service is performed and chanted there, you are not aware of it till you come quite close. The angels in the Baptistery are monstrous giants; the doves, colossal birds of prey; you lose all idea of measurement with the eye, or proportion; and yet who does not feel his heart expand, when standing under the dome, and gazing up at it? At present a monstrous catafalque has been erected in the nave in this shape. ”

“ What a source of pleasure it is, and how cheering, to know there is another musician in the world who has the same purposes and aspirations, and who follows the same path as yourself; perhaps you cannot feel this so strongly as I do at this moment, who have just come from a country where music no longer exists among the people. I never before could have believed this of any nation, and least of all of Italy, 273 with such rich and luxuriant nature, and such glorious, inspiriting antecedents. ”

“ It is just as if a lover were to bring a declaration of love to his mistress in rhyme and verse, and recite it to her.
I am now going to Munich, where they have offered me an opera, to see if I can find a man there who is a poet, for I will only have a man who has a certain portion of fire and genius. I do not expect a giant, and if I fail in meeting with a poet there, I shall probably make Immermann's acquaintance for this express purpose, and if he is not the man either, I shall try for him in London. I always fancy that the right man has not yet appeared ”

“ When they are together, it is either a perpetual tragedy, or comedy,—as you will. Y—— distorts everything, without a spark of talent, always groping in the dark, but esteeming himself the creator of a new world; writing moreover the most frightful things, and yet dreaming and thinking of nothing but Beethoven, Schiller, and Goethe; a victim at the same time to the most boundless vanity, and looking down condescendingly on Mozart and Haydn, so that all his enthusiasm seems to me very doubtful. ”

“ She has the gift of composing songs, and singing them in a way I never heard before, causing me the most unalloyed musical delight I ever experienced. When she is seated at the piano, and begins one of the songs, the sounds are quite unique; the music floats strangely to and fro, and every note expresses the most profound and refined feeling. When she sings the first note in her tender tones, every one present subsides into a quiet and thoughtful mood, and each, in his own way, is deeply affected. ”

“ His other music is remarkable for the sweetness of its melodies—its earnest simplicity. His instrumentality is scientific without being pedantic or heavy, and utterly devoid of antiquated formalism; though pathetic often, there is always a vigor and life in all his inspirations; the low mournful wail that runs through all Chopin's works, arising from a morbid condition of health and heart, is never felt in Mendelssohn. There is none of the bitterness, the long suffering that artists' lives entail and that artists infuse into their works, for Mendelssohn was a happy man from first to last. ”

“ When you are once in, the whole extent of the huge cave and its vault is revealed, and you can row about in it with perfect ease, as if under a dome. The light of the sun also pierces through the opening into the grotto underneath the sea, but broken and dimmed by the green sea water, and thence it is that such magical visions arise. The whole of the rocks are sky-blue and green in the twilight, resembling the hue of moonshine, yet every nook, and every depth, is distinctly visible. ”

“ Yesterday, early, as I told you, I was tempted by the bright sun to cross the Genthel valley to ascend the Joch, but on the summit the most dreadful weather set in; we were obliged to make our way through the snow, and this was sometimes anything but pleasant. We speedily, however, emerged out of the sleet and snow, and an enchanting moment ensued, when the clouds broke, while we were still standing in them; and far beneath us, we saw through the mists as through a black veil, the green valley of Engelberg. ”

“ I am by no means careless with regard to my health, and have not, for a long time, felt so well as during my pedestrian excursions in Switzerland. If eating, and drinking, and sleeping, and music in one's head, can make a man healthy, then, God be praised, I may well call myself so; for my guide and I vie with each other in eating and drinking, and not less so unluckily in singing. In sleeping alone I surpass him; and though I sometimes disturb him by my trumpet or oboe tones, he in turn cuts short my morning sleep. ”

“ I almost dreaded being undeceived, but at first sight of the foreground of the Alps from the Lake of Como, veiled in clouds, with here and there a surface of bright snow, sharp black points rearing their heads, and sinking precipitously into the lake, the hills first scattered over with trees and villages, and covered with moss, and then bleak and desolate, and on every side deep ravines filled with snow,—I felt just as I formerly did, and saw that I had exaggerated nothing.
In the Alps all is more free, more sharply defined ”

“ In that event, Pilate ought to sing just as he would have spoken, the chorus shout out "Crucifige" in a tone anything but sacred; and then, through the impress of entire truth, and the dignity of the object represented, the singing would become sacred church music.
I require no under-current of thought when I hear music, which is not to me "a mere medium to elevate the mind to piety," as they say here, but a distinct language speaking plainly to me; for though the sense is expressed by the words, it is equally contained in the music. ”

“ I take music in a very serious light, and I consider it quite inadmissible to compose anything that I do not thoroughly feel. It is just as if I were to utter a falsehood; for notes have as distinct a meaning as words, perhaps even a more definite sense. Now it appears to me almost impossible to compose for a descriptive poem. The mass of compositions of this nature do not militate against this opinion, but rather prove its truth; for I am not acquainted with one single work of the kind that has been successful. You are placed between a dramatic conception or a mere narrative ”

“ The German Parnassus seems in as disorganized a condition as European politics. God help us! I was obliged to digest the supercilious Menzel, who presumed modestly to depreciate Goethe,—and the supercilious Grabbe, who modestly depreciates Shakspeare,—and the philosophers who proclaim Schiller to be rather trivial! Is this new, arrogant, overbearing spirit, this perverse cynicism, as odious to you as it is to me? and are you of the same opinion with myself, that the first and most indispensable quality of any artist is to feel respect for great men, and to bow down in spirit before them ”

“ We now came to a short rocky pass, from which you descend into the valley of Campana, the 142 most enchanting spot I have ever seen; it is like a boundless garden, covered entirely with plants and vegetation as far as the eye can reach. On one side are the blue outlines of the sea, on the other an undulating range of hills above which snowy peaks project; and at a great distance Vesuvius and the islands, bathed in blue vapours, start up on the level surface; large avenues of trees intersect the vast space, and a verdant growth forces its way from under every stone. ”

“ I felt disposed to become a hermit, with beard and cowl, and the whole world was at a discount with me. In Italy you first learn to value a true musician; that is, one whose thoughts are absorbed in music, and not in money, or decorations, or ladies, or fame; it is doubly delightful when you find that, without your being aware of it, your own ideas exist and are developed elsewhere; your songs therefore gave me especial pleasure, because I could gather from them that you must be a genuine musician, and so let us mutually stretch out our hands across the mountains. ”