Letters of Felix Mendelssohn

THE letters of a musician are often singularly interesting, because one approaches his mind in a novel way ; and in this familiar correspondence ¹ the impression which Mendelssohn gives of himself is so direct and personal that it affords something of the pleasure one gets in meeting some noted person of whom he has heard much. Moscheles was an early master of Mendelssohn, who had the fortune to win his confidence ; and he so cultivated the friendship that when the young genius set out on his musical travels he naturally came to the old master’s home in London, where he began to see the world. The Moscheles family were most hospitable to him, and hence arose an intimate association, which continued to strengthen and ripen into one of the closest and most prized friendships of their lives. Letters and notes passed between them during their long absences from each other: warm and free-hearted on Mendelssohn’s part, overflowing with confidence, crowded with little details and the trifles that made up his days, discussing his own compositions and passing judgment upon the work of other men without reserve, full of helpful or kind suggestion about plans for concerts and journeys, and in general just what letters ought to be that have no thought of the future biographer. The collection is not a very large one. It is supplemented in the volume by a number of Mendelssohn’s sketches and other illustrations, and fac-similes of interesting papers, which make the work more characteristic, and bring us still closer to the man. Much of it, however, remains technical, entertaining only to the reader of music as well as books, and requiring some special and minute acquaintance with the history of the art in order to have real value. The more important part, for our purpose, consists of the glimpses of Mendelssohn’s daily life, of the society he met and lived with, and in general his circumstances and temperament. There is enough of such matter to furnish a definite idea of the human as distinguished from the ideal side of his nature.

Mendelssohn was a very pleasant companion, if the recollections of the editor of these pages are to be trusted. Felix Moscheles was Mendelssohn’s godchild, and naturally received strong impression of him. The brief introduction which is all he allows his pen is exquisitely touched with the memory of his godfather’s amiability and playfulness. " From earliest childhood I looked upon him as my parents’ dearest friend and my own specially dear godfather, whose attention I had a right to monopolize whenever I thought my turn had come. I recollect waiting for that turn more than once, while he was sitting at the piano with my father. When it came I had every reason to enjoy it. He really was a rare playfellow, a delightful companion, not likely to be forgotten. A certain race across Regent’s Park ; the tennis-ball thrown into immeasurable space; that pitched battle of snow-balls, which appeared to me second to none in the annals of warfare ; his improvisation of a funeral march, to which I enacted the part and exemplified the throes of the dying hero, — all seem but things of yesterday. And then the drawing of that troublesome hatchet! To this day I am grateful to him for helping me with that curve I could not get right.” He remembers, too, the musical contests of the two composers, and gives a lively description of them : “ A subject once started, it was caught up as if it were a shuttlecock. Now one of the players would seem to toss it up on high, or to keep it balanced in mid-octaves with delicate touch ; then the other would take it in hand, start it on classical lines, and develop it with profound erudition, until, perhaps, the two, joining together in new and brilliant forms, would triumphantly carry it up to other spheres of sound. Four hands there might be, but only one soul, so it seemed, as they would catch with lightning speed at each other’s ideas, each trying to introduce subjects from the works of the other. It was exciting to watch how the amicable contest would wax hot, culminating occasionally in an outburst of merriment when some conflicting harmonies met in terrible collision. I see Mendelssohn’s sparkling eye, his air of triumph, on that evening when he had succeeded in twisting a subject from a composition of his own into a Moscheles theme, while Moscheles was obliged to second him in the bass. But not for long. ‘Stop a minute ! ’ said the next few chords that Moscheles struck. ‘There I have you; this time you have taken the bait.’ ” And so on to the finale. The younger Moscheles was but fifteen when Mendelssohn died, but the picture he gives us of him is one of the most lifelike and familiar that we have.

The letters themselves begin in 1829, and continue to within a few months of Mendelssohn’s death, in 1847, when the Moscheles family had removed from London to Leipzig. The early years are somewhat clouded by the discouragements that attended the unfolding of his genius, the fits of depression that attacked his sensitive temperament, and the disagreeable features of the society in which he moved; but in his letters he is uniformly cheerful and interested for himself and others, and the glimpses occasionally given of his own family, especially his half-blind father, to whom he was affectionately attached, are in the happiest manner. He was fond of London, and frequently returned to it for a brief visit; and he was correspondingly depressed by Germany and the trials he suffered in persuading his fellow-countrymen to hold to the best in music. He was inclined, apparently, to radicalism by his life in England, and more than once he expresses himself with vigor in regard to the formal fopperies of the German courts. He complains, when he is anxious to compose an opera, that he cannot find any one who knows the stage and writes tolerable verses. “ Altogether,” he goes on, in this passage, “ this is a queer country. Much as I love it, I hate it in certain respects. Look at the musical men of this place, for instance ; their doings are quite shameful.” It appears that they sit and grumble, and complain, and brood over their grievances, when they might do good work if they would use their talents and skill. This does not seem an exceptional situation for poor human nature. But Mendelssohn occasionally laughs at his fellow-countrymen, which is much worse than hating them “ in certain respects.” This is the way he treated them in Berlin. “ Strange to say, since I have begun to work hard, and have become convinced that Berlin society is an awful monster, I should like to remain here some time longer. I feel comfortable, and find it rather difficult to set out traveling again. All the morning there is a constant knocking at my door, but I do not open, and am happy to think what bores I may have escaped, unknown to myself. But when the evening comes, and I go round to my parents, and we all join in the liveliest discussion and the maddest laughter, then indeed we have a splendid time.” Outside of this domestic circle society had no attraction. He denounces the grand déjeûner dansant, — “ of all the hateful Berlin institutions the one I hate most. A nice set they are ! They meet at half past eleven A. M., and spend their time eating and drinking until one o’clock next morning. There are few things so unsightly in my eyes,” — a peculiarity of taste which he shared with Landor, — “ whether it is done in broad daylight, which is one way, or whether the shutters are closed at midday and the chandeliers lighted, as they do at court in Berlin.” From these “ splendors ” and the late dancingparties under the lead of Prince Frederick he rejoices to be saved at the expense of a severe cold. In Düsseldorf, likewise, he exhibits the same critical temper. The passage is as vivacious as any in the volume, and is very characteristic: “ If I had seen Mrs. Moscheles at that ball I went to last night, where there were such quantities of tallow candles, and we had ham and potatoes for supper, and the boards were sprinkled after the first dance, not after the second (that would have been of no use; the dust was so thick that you could hardly see the people), and they danced down the stove to the capital music of some worthy members of my band, — the whole thing got up by the commercial club commonly called The Parliament, — and the ladies’ dresses — no, but these baffle description, — only had I seen Mrs. Moscheles there, and she me, in my best English cravat, too, I should just have collapsed for very shame. Now what I should like of all things would be to go and enjoy myself at the fair ; surely it could not be ungenteeler, but undoubtedly jollier ; only you see my rank as music director does not allow of my taking such liberties, a fact that the burgomaster himself has strongly impressed upon me. And then we have the glorious rivalry between Düsseldorf and Elberfeld, which is twelve miles off; Düsseldorf styling itself Athens, and dubbing Elberfeld Rio de Janeiro or Augsburg. And then all the girls are plain, and that is quite a misfortune, or at least a grievance.”

This is an admirable vignette of German provincial life in the town ; but it may be remarked that Mendelssohn was exacting in regard to feminine charms. He speaks of his horse, “ so glossy and brown, so healthy and so very goodnatured,” as more attractive than all the young ladies he knew in Berlin. The reference to his English cravat, too, recalls the fact that he seems to have acquired neatness in England under the tutorship of Mrs. Moscheles. “ You want to know,” he writes, “whether I am rapidly degenerating here, and whether I stand in awe of any one as I did of you with regard to elegance, or rather neatness. Madame Hübner, whom you must have seen at Berlin, does sometimes take me to task, and sees at a glance, on my entering a room, some shortcoming which it might take me six months to notice; but she is not so good a Mentor as you, so that I fear you will find me quite run wild should I venture again out of my backwoods ; and as for my capacity for tying a cravat with taste, that will be a thing of the past. But when we meet, you will find me as willing a pupil as ever.” And again, lamenting the perennial lack of “ enough pretty girls here,” and remarking that “ one does n’t want to be composing fugues and chorales all day long,” he says, upon his soul, he is getting “ so frumpy and old-fashioned that I dread the thought of putting on a dress-coat; and how I am to get on if I go to England next spring and have to wear shoes, I know not.” Slight as these details are, they give the social perspective of his life, and add something of costume to his personality. They are the every-day side of his genius.

There is less direct criticism of the great masters of music than might have been expected. Mendelssohn’s own practice is sufficient to define his tastes and standards, and from it one easily arrives at his opinion. Expressions of admiration for his predecessors are not infrequent, and occasionally there is a burst of enthusiasm; but in writing to Moscheles he would not have been likely to fill his pages with encomiums which might well be taken for granted between two such correspondents. The subjects in the letters are usually their own works, or those of others who were at the time supporting theories of music with which Mendelssohn did not agree. There is but one violent passage: it is upon Berlioz’s Overture, which he calls chaotic and prosaic ; the orchestration is pronounced “ a frightful muddle.” " an incongruous mess,” such that one " ought to wash his hands ” after handling the score. Mendelssohn remarks, too, upon the shame of setting " nothing but murder, misery, and wailing” to music; even when well done, he says, it would be simply “a record of atrocities;” and then he briefly dismisses Berlioz’s works as “ rubbishy nonsense.” The French taste in music was a burden and a weariness to him. He had to forgive the French polish in Liszt; but the way in which he speaks of him at the end of the volume, contrasted with some expressions in the earlier portion, shows openness and flexibility in the composer’s judgment: “ His playing, which is quite masterly, and his subtle musical feeling, which finds its way to the very tips of his fingers, truly delighted me. His rapidity and suppleness, above all his playing at sight, his memory, and his thorough musical insight, are qualities quite unique in their way, and that I have never seen surpassed. With all that, you find in him, when once you have penetrated beneath the surface of modern French polish, a good fellow and a true artist, whom you can’t help liking even if you disagree with him.” He objects that Liszt lacks original ideas, and that there is incompleteness in his work, but, taken all in all, there is much breadth in this friendly and frank judgment. For Cherubini he expresses a warm regard, and when he touches on the works of the greater masters his words have the warmth of the true artist’s delight in the things which he recognizes to be best. There is a passage upon discords which would, perhaps, need some revision in the light of recent musical history, but the Wagnerian development was then unforeseen. Handel is praised especially for his style. “ Then, again, that constant use of the brass ! As a matter of sheer calculation it should be sparingly employed, let alone the question of art ! That’s where I admire Handel’s glorious style, when he brings up his kettledrums and trumpets toward the end, and thumps and batters about to his heart’s content, as if he meant to knock you down ; no mortal man can remain unmoved. I really think it is far better to imitate such work than to overstrain the nerves of your audience, who, after all, will at last get accustomed to Cayenne pepper.” He goes on to lament the change in Cherubini’s style.

It is not for opinions upon music or any of the chance criticisms of his pen, unguarded as they are, that these letters are interesting, but for the directness and frankness with which they reveal Mendelssohn’s temperament. He is seen at home among his friends, and this familiar view is one to give great pleasure to his admirers. He had the volatility of the artist nature, its sensibilities, and, as he seems never to have written when he was depressed, he exhibits its vivacity. There is a real sparkle to the flow of thought, so that one feels the vitality of the man himself. The constancy of the friendship between the Moscheles family and Mendelssohn was undisturbed, and their correspondence is interesting to the end. His sudden death makes the closing pages, which contain Moscheles’s account of the event, pathetic; and coming as it does in the midst of plans for the future, of his many interests in life, and the abundance of his enjoyments and occupations, one has the sense of the breaking of his career in the prime of his activity. The impression made by the volume, therefore, unlike most collections of letters in that it covers the period from youth to the time of death, is one of a complete life ; it is in a true sense biographical, and one could hardly desire a more attractive and sincere record of Mendelssohn’s personality than is thus provided from his own hand.