Mendelssohn

Last week I presented the first of two talks on the life and music of Felix Mendelssohn. In between the musical selections listed below, I read extracts of letters from the composer or by relatives and friends about him.

The one that really struck me described a party in the Weimar home of Johann Goethe, the great German poet who was a close friend of the young Mendelssohn. The letter by Heinrich Rellstab, another German poet who was in attendance, describes how the boy (his word) was encouraged to play the piano for the assembled group. After playing works that Goethe downplayed as simply "pieces you know", the old man went out and returned with some music rolls, saying "I have fetched something from my manuscript collection. Now we will try you. Do you think you can play this?"



It was an original manuscript of Mozart in his own "clear but small" handwriting. Rellstab described the feeling quite beautifully:

"Felix glowed with delight at the name; and an indescribable feeling came over over us all, partly enthusiasm and joy, partly admiration and expectation. Goethe, the aged man, laying a manuscript of Mozart, who had been buried thirty years, before a lad so full of promise for the future."

After he played this, another manuscript was produced, this time rather less tidy: "it was difficult to say if they were notes or only a paper, ruled, and splashed with ink and blots". As you might have guessed, it was Beethoven.

As Mendelssohn's teacher, Carl Zelter, looking over his pupil's shoulder, said, "He always writes with a broomstick, and passes his sleeve over the notes before they are dry."

I get shivers up my spine thinking about this extraordinary coming together of genius.

By the way, the book from which most of these letters came from is called Mendelssohn Remembered by Roger Nichols, and published by Faber and Faber.

The works I chose to play selections from were:

• an early prelude for organ
• Symphony for strings 9
• Concerto for two pianos
• Die Hochzeit des Camacho
• Piano quartet 3
• Octet for strings
• Symphony 5 (Reformation)
• Ave Maria
• Die erste Walpurgisnacht
• Hebrides Overture (a 1950 recording with Wilhelm Furtwangler conducting the Berlin Phil)
• Lieder ohne Worte (Venetian gondola song)
• Symphony 4 (Italian)

The second talk (covering the years 1835-1847) is next month.