To Capellmeister Spohr, Cassel.
Düsseldorf, March 8th, 1835.
Respected Capellmeister,
I thank you much for your friendly communication. The intelligence from Vienna was most interesting to me; I had heard nothing of it. It strongly revived my feeling as to the utter impossibility of my ever composing anything with a view to competing for a prize. I should never be able to make even a beginning; and if I were obliged to undergo an examination as a musician, I am convinced that I should be at once sent back, for I should not have done half as well as I could. The thoughts of a prize, or an award, would distract my thoughts; and yet I cannot rise so superior to this feeling as entirely to forget it. But if you find that you are in a mood for such a thing, you should not fail to compose a symphony by that time, and to send it, for I know no man living who could dispute the prize with you (this is the second reason), and then we should get another symphony of yours (first reason). With regard to the members of the Judicial Committee in Vienna, I have my own thoughts, which, however, are not very legitimate, but, on the contrary, somewhat rebellious. Were I one of the judges, not a single member of the Comité should obtain a prize, if they competed for one.
You wish me to write to you on the subject of my works, and I cordially thank you for asking about them. I began an oratorio about a year ago, which I expect to finish next month, the subject of which is St. Paul. Some friends have compiled the words for me from the Bible, and I think that both the subject and the compilation are well adapted to music, and very solemn,—if the music only prove as good as I wish; at all events I have enjoyed the most intense delight, while engaged in writing it. I also composed, some time since, a new overture to the “Lovely Melusina,” and have another in my head at this moment. 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; perhaps you will permit me to send you some of these as soon as I have an opportunity to do so. I am, with the highest esteem and consideration, your devoted
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
To Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, from his Father.[19]
Berlin, March 10th, 1835.
This is the third letter I have written to you this week, and if this goes on, reading my letters will become a standing article in the distribution of the budget of your time; but you must blame yourself for this, as you spoil me by your praise. I at once pass to the musical portion of your last letter.
Your aphorism, that every room in which Sebastian Bach is sung is transformed into a church, I consider peculiarly appropriate; and when I once heard the last movement of the piece in question, it made a similar impression on myself; but I own I cannot overcome my dislike to figured chorales in general, because I cannot understand the fundamental idea on which they are based, especially where the contending parts are maintained in an equal balance of power. For example, in the first chorus of the “Passion,”—where the chorale forms only a more important and consistent part of the basis; or where, as in the above-mentioned movement of the cantata (if I remember it rightly, having only heard it once), the chorale represents the principal building, and the individual parts only the decorations,—I can better comprehend the purpose and the conception; but not so certainly where the figure, in a certain manner, carries out variations on the theme. No liberties ought ever assuredly to be taken with a chorale. Its highest purpose is, that the congregation should sing it in all its purity to the accompaniment of the organ; all else seems to me idle and inappropriate for a church.
At Fanny’s last morning’s music the motett of Bach, “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit,” and your “Ave Maria,” were sung by select voices. A long passage in the middle of the latter, as well as the end also, appeared to me too learned and intricate to accord with the simple piety, and certainly genuine catholic spirit, which pervades the rest of the music. Rebecca remarked that there was some confusion in the execution of those very passages which I considered too intricate; but this only proves that I am an ignoramus, but not that the conclusion is not too abstrusely modulated. With regard to Bach, the composition in question seems to me worthy of the highest admiration. It is long since I have been so struck, or surprised by anything, as by the Introduction, which Fanny played most beautifully; and I could not help thinking of Bach’s solitary position, of his isolated condition with regard to his associates and his contemporaries, of his pure, mild, and vast power, and the transparency of its depths. The particular pieces which at the time were for ever engraved on my memory, were “Bestelle dein Haus,” and “Es ist der alte Bund.” I cared less for the bass air, or the alt solos. What first, through his “Passion,” seemed quite clear to me—that Bach is the musical type of Protestantism—becomes either negatively or positively more apparent to me every time that I hear a new piece of his; and thus it was recently with a Mass that I heard in the Academy, and which I consider most decidedly anti-Catholic; and, consequently, even all its great beauties seemed as unable to reconcile the inward contradiction, as if I were to hear a Protestant clergyman performing Mass in a Protestant Church. Moreover, I felt more strongly than ever what a great merit it was on Zelter’s part to restore Bach to the Germans; for, between Forkel’s day and his, very little was ever said about Bach, and even then principally with regard to his “wohltemperirte Clavier.” He was the first person on whom the light of Bach clearly dawned, through the acquisition of his other works, with which, as a collector of music, he became acquainted, and, as a genuine artist, imparted this knowledge to others. His musical performances on Fridays were indeed a proof that no work begun in earnest, and followed up with quiet perseverance, can fail ultimately to command success. At all events, it is an undoubted fact, that without Zelter, your own musical tendencies would have been of a totally different nature.
Your intention to restore Handel in his original form, has led me to some reflections on his later style of instrumentation. A question is not unfrequently raised as to whether Handel, if he wrote in our day, would make use of all the existing musical facilities in composing his oratorios,—which, in fact, only means whether the wonted artistic form to which we give the name of Handel, would assume the same shape now that it did a hundred years ago; and the answer to this presents itself at once. The question, however, ought to be put in a different form,—not whether Handel would compose his oratorios now as he did a century since, but rather, whether he would compose any oratorios whatever; hardly—if they must be written in the style of those of the present day.
From my saying this to you, you may gather with what eager anticipations and confidence I look forward to your oratorio, which will, I trust, solve the problem of combining ancient conceptions with modern appliances; otherwise the result would be as great a failure as that of the painters of the nineteenth century, who only make themselves ridiculous by attempting to revive the religious elements of the fifteenth, with its long arms and legs, and topsy-turvy perspective. These new resources seem to me, like everything else in the world, to have been developed just at the right time, in order to animate the inner impulses which were daily becoming more feeble. On the heights of religious feeling, on which Bach, Handel, and their contemporaries stood, they required no numerous orchestras for their oratorios; and I can remember perfectly in my earliest years, the “Messiah,” “Judas,” and “Alexander’s Feast” being given exactly as Handel wrote them, without even an organ, and yet to the delight and edification of every one.
But how is this to be managed nowadays, when vacuity of thought and noise in music are gradually being developed in inverse relation to each other? The orchestra, however, is now established, and is likely long to maintain its present form without any essential modification. Riches are only a fault when we do not know how to spend them. How, then, is the wealth of the orchestra to be applied? What guidance can the poet give for this, and to what regions? or is music to be entirely severed from poetry, and work its own independent way? I do not believe it can accomplish the latter, at least, only to a very limited extent, and not available for the world at large; to effect the former, an object must be found for music as well as for painting, which, by its fervour, its universal sufficiency and perspicuity, may supply the place of the pious emotions of former days. It seems to me that both the oratorios of Haydn were, in their sphere, also very remarkable phenomena. The poems of both are weak, regarded as poetry; but they have replaced the old positive and almost metaphysical religious impulses, by those which nature, as a visible emanation from the Godhead, in her universality, and her thousandfold individualities, instils into every susceptible heart. Hence the profound depth, but also the cheerful efficiency, and certainly genuine religious influence, of these two works, which hitherto stand alone; hence the combined effect of the playful and detached passages, with the most noble and sincere feelings of gratitude produced by the whole; hence is it also, that I individually could as little endure to lose in the “Creation” and in the “Seasons” the crowing of the cock, the singing of the lark, the lowing of the cattle, and the rustic glee of the peasants, as I could in nature herself; in other words, the “Creation” and the “Seasons” are founded on nature and the visible service of God,—and are no new materials for music to be found there?
The publication of Goethe’s “Correspondence with a Child” I consider a most provoking and pernicious abuse of the press, through which, more and more rapidly, all illusions will be destroyed, without which life is only death. You, I trust, will never lose your illusions, and ever preserve your filial attachment to your father.