187 



MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY. 



MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY. 



198 



into parts; or, to UEB his own expression, a diminution of the 'inten- 

 sive magnitude." Thus a deep red colour may grow fainter and fainter 

 till at last all the redness is gone, and this without any diminution of 

 the surface coloured. Another fallacy in Mendelssohn's argument is 

 that liia definition of change applies only to a transition from one 

 state of being to another, and therefore does not include a transition 

 from being to not-being. For if not-being be considered a state of 

 being, there is no occasion for an argument at all, as the continuance 

 of being is assumed in the definition of change, nor would anything 

 be gained by supposing the soul in such a paradoxical state as non- 

 entity with still a sort of being attached to it. 



A magnificent edition of Mendelssohn's works was published some 

 years back at Berlin : an English version of the ' Phaxlon ' appeared in 

 1789 and also in 1838. 



MENDELSSOHN. FELIX MENDELSSOHB-BARTHOLDY, one of the 

 greatest musicians of the present century, was born at Hamburg on 

 the 3rd of February 1809. He was the grandson of the celebrated 

 MOSES MENDELSSOHN, noticed above. His father, who was the head 

 of a great banking-house, on his marriage adopted the name of 

 his wife's family in addition to his own. He had embraced the 

 Lutheran faith, in which his children were brought up. When Felix 

 was in his infancy, his father removed from Hamburg to Berlin, 

 where he resided till his death, enjoying a distinguished place in the 

 society of the Prussian capital. He bestowed the utmost care upon 

 the education of his son, who showed, at a very early age, singular 

 attainments, not only in the art to which his genius especially directed 

 him, but in various branches of literature and science. While yet a 

 child, he gained the affections of Gothe, who was a friend, of the 

 family ; and the published letters of that illustrious man contain many 

 touching expressions of his love for the youthful Felix and prognosti- 

 cations of his future greatness. He was even then remarkable for his 

 amiable disposition and simplicity of mind ; qualities which he retained 

 unimpaired to the end of his too short life. 



As in the case of almost every great musician of almost every 

 great artist indeed of any description Mendelssohn's genius showed 

 iUelf even in infancy. He tried to play almost before he tried to 

 speak. His talents received the best and earliest culture. Zelter, 

 the friend and correspondent of Gothe, was big chief instructor in 

 music, and his progress was almost as marvellous as that of Mozart. 

 Indeed his first works, which were afterwards published, were in 

 advance of anything produced by Mozart at an age equally tender. 

 His three quartets for the pianoforte, violin, and violoncello, written 

 before he was twelve years old, are not merely surprising juvenile 

 compositions, but masterly works, which continue to be constantly 

 performed, and hold their place among the classical music of the age. 

 He was in his sixteenth year when hia opera, ' The Wedding of 

 Oamaelio,' was produced on the Berlin stage, more, it has been said, 

 from the wish of his proud and happy parents than his own, for the 

 most unaffected modesty always formed a part of his character. It 

 was favourably received ; but, as it betrayed some inexperience in 

 composition for the stage, it was withdrawn by bis friends. It was 

 however published; and, though it is not generally known to the 

 public, many copies of it are in the hands of amateurs. The music 

 is not only charming, but full of the dramatic element. Every per- 

 sonage speaks in big own characteristic language, from the solemn 

 pomp of Don Quixote and the grotesque humour of Sanclio, to the 

 passionate tenderness of the young lovers whose wedding and its crosses 

 form the subject of Cervantes'a delightful story. This most interesting 

 piece shows what great things Mendelssohn might have done for the 

 music of the stage, had he not left this branch of his art to tread the 

 highest of all that in which he followed, and at no great distance, 

 the footsteps of Handel. Another proof of the dramatic character of 

 his genius at that early age was the composition of the overture to 

 ' The Midsummer Night's Dream,' which breathes in every bar Shak- 

 apere's own inspiration. Its popularity has now become unbounded ; 

 and no listener can fail to trace in its passages, in which the fanciful, 

 the delicate, and the grotesque are so exquisitely blended, the various 

 conceptions of the poet. The rest.of the music for ' The Midsummer 

 Night's Dream ' was not written till many years afterwards, for the 

 purpose of accompanying the performance of the play at Berlin. Its 

 effect, thus introduced, was found to be so delightful, that in Ger- 

 many the play is never represented without it, and the same thing is 

 beginning to be the case in this country. 



Mendelssohn had just reached his twentieth year when he made his 

 first visit to England ; a visit which deeply influenced the whole course 

 of his life. He arrived in London in April 1829. His reputation was 

 not unknown to our most eminent musicians, by whom he was cor- 

 dially received. At the first concert after his arrival of the Philhar- 

 monic Society, his overture to 'The Midsummer Night's Dream' was 

 performed, and received with enthusiasm by an audience, most of 

 whom could never have heard of his name. It was immediately pub- 

 lished. In a little memoir of his life, published a few years ago by 

 Mr. Benedict the eminent German musician so long resident among 

 us, there are some valuable remarks on his London debut. " The 

 effect," says Mr. Benedict, " of the first performance of the overture to 

 4 The Midsummer Night's Dream ' in London was electrical. All at 

 once, and perhaps even when least expected, the great gap left by the 

 death of Beethoven seemed likely to be filled up ; and 1 am happy to 



adduce this success as another proof of the much underrated taste of 

 the English public, and its discernment in appreciating arid even dis- 

 covering new-born musical talent. Not to speak of the Elizabethan 

 era of Orlando Lasso, Luca Marenzio, the great madrigal writers 

 Jid not Handel compose his immortal works almost exclusively in 

 England and for an English audience? Were not Haydn's finest 

 symphonies written to gratify the London amateurs before a note of 

 ;hem was heard or known in Germany or France ? Was not Beethoven 

 mown and revered by English artists, by English musical societies, 

 when almost forsaken and neglected in Germany ? And so it was with 

 Mendelssohn. His renown, after the enthusiastic but just reports of 

 his reception in London, both as a composer and pianist, spread like 

 wildfire all over Europe, and gave the young and ardent maestro a 

 new stimulus to proceed on his glorious path." 



In the same year Mendelssohn visited Scotland. In Edinburgh he 

 was warmly welcomed by a literary and musical society well able to 

 appreciate his genius and attainments, and his stay in that city was 

 always regarded by him as one of the most agreeable incidents of his 

 life. He afterwards made an extensive tour through the Highlands 

 and the Western Isles; and many reminiscences of the days spent 

 in Scotland are to be found in his compositions. He was deeply 

 impressed with the wild and romantic beauty of the old Caledonian 

 music, even in its rudest and most primitive form, and especially 

 admired the Highland bagpipe and those antique strains, which 

 though harsh and discordant to " ears polite," and scarcely allowed by 

 dainty connoisseurs to deserve the name of music, yet reach the heart 

 of every true Scotsman. Such music Mendelssohn could understand 

 and value. A Scottish friend carried him to witness the " Competition 

 of Pipers," as it is called, a gathering of masters of the national 

 instrument, who are chiefly retainers of great families, and assemble 

 annually in the Edinburgh theatre to contend for the palm of 

 minstrelsy in the presence of the most brilliant company of the 

 metropolis a relic of Scottish feudalism still preserved. To the 

 surprise of his cicerone, who merely wished to give him half an hour's 

 amusement, Mendelssohn remained to the last, immersed in what he 

 heard, and earnestly comparing the merits of the various pibrochs 

 and the powers of the performers. Many years afterwards, the same 

 friend heard the celebrated symphony in A minor (now called the 

 Scottish symphony) performed for the first time, under the author's 

 own direction, at a concert of the Philharmonic Society. Struck with the 

 strains of Highland melody which characterise that piece the festive 

 dance, the gathering, the warlike march, the lament he was about 

 to make some remark to Mendelssohn, when he said with a smile, 

 " You remember the pipers '! " His fine orchestral piece too, ' The 

 Isles of Fingal,' is full of the impressions made upon his mind by the 

 wild and stormy shores of the Hebrides. 



In the following year he was for some time in Italy ; and two years 

 afterwards ho visited Paris. From thence he came a second time to 

 London ; and from that time, we believe, to the end of his life, there 

 was scarcely a season in which he did not visit England. He began 

 even then to feel that he was more justly appreciated in our country 

 than even in his own; and thenceforth England became, as it were, 

 bin adopted country, and was associated with the most important 

 circumstances of his artistic life. His treatment at that time by his own 

 countrymen appears to have inspired him with different feelings, and 

 we have the authority of Mr. Benedict for saying, that " the mean 

 cabals which were always at work against him at Berlin increased his 

 dislike to that city so much as to induce him to leave it, as he then 

 thought, for ever." He left Berlin for Leipzig, where he accepted 

 the directorship of the famous Gewandhaus Concerts, and where he 

 remained till the year 1844, when he was induced, by the pressing 

 request of the King of Prussia, to return to Berlin. 



His entrance upon his glorious career as a composer of sacred music 

 may be fairly ascribed to the committee of the Birmingham Festival ; 

 for he get about the composition of his first oratorio, ' St. Paul,' under 

 the arrangement that it should be performed under his own direction 

 at the festival of 1837. And it was so performed accordingly, having 

 been previously produced at Dusseldorf and Leipzig. 



The performance of this oratorio in the Town-hall of Birmingham 

 on the 20th of September 1837, was an event memorable in the 

 annals of music in England. It was got up with the unrivalled mag- 

 nificence for which the musical festivals of that town are distinguished. 

 The impression which it made upon an immense assemblage will long 

 be remembered by those who were present. Mendelssohn was again 

 at the Birmingham Festival of 1840, when the ' Lobgesang,' or ' Hymn 

 of Praise," composed expressly for that festival, was performed under 

 his own direction. This remarkable work, called a ' Sinfonia-Can- 

 tata,' in which the powers of vocal and instrumental music are equally 

 employed in developing a grand design, had a great success, and like 

 'St. Paul,' was speedily reproduced in the metropolis, and at all the 

 great music-meetings in the kingdom. 



His third and last oratorio, the greatest of them all 'Elijah,' was 

 also written expressly for Birmingham. Though he undertook it 

 immediately after the production of 'St. Paul' in 1837, it was not 

 performed till 1846; and during these nine jears, it occupied a 

 large (share of his thoughts and Ms labours. When the time for its 

 production drew near, he resigned his post at Berlin and gave up 

 every other occupation, in order to devote his whole powers to this 



