To Concert-Meister Ferdinand David, Leipzig.
Berlin, October 21st, 1841.
Dear David,
Thanks for your having at once read through ‘Antigone.’ I felt assured beforehand that it would please you beyond measure when you did so; and the very impression which reading it made on me, is in fact the cause of the affair being accomplished. There was a great deal of talking about it, but no one would begin; they wished to put it off till next autumn, and so forth, but as the noble style of the piece fascinated me so much, I got hold of old Tieck, and said “Now or never!” and he was amiable, and said “Now!” and so I composed music for it to my heart’s content; we have two rehearsals of it daily, and the choruses are executed with such precision, that it is a real delight to listen to them. All in Berlin of course think that we are very sly, and that I composed the choruses to become a court favourite, or a court musicus, or a court fool; while at the beginning I thought, on the contrary, that I would not mix myself up with the affair; but the piece itself, with its extraordinary beauty and grandeur, drove everything else out of my head, and only inspired me with the wish to see it performed as soon as possible. The subject in itself was glorious, and I worked at it with heartfelt pleasure. It seems to me very remarkable that there is so much in art quite unchangeable. The parts of all these choruses are to this day so genuinely musical, and yet so different from each other, that no man could wish anything finer for his composition. If it were not so difficult here to come to any kind of judgment about a work! There are only shameless flatterers, or equally shameless critics to be met with, and there is nothing to be done with either, for both from the very first deprive us of all pleasure. As yet I have had only to do with admiration. After this performance the learned will, no doubt, come forward and reveal to me how I should and must have composed, had I been a Berliner.—Your
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
To Professor Dehn, Berlin.[52]
Berlin, October 28th, 1841.
Sir,
The kind and amiable feelings which your letter of yesterday testified towards me, caused me great pleasure, and I beg to thank you very sincerely and truly. Although I entirely agree with you that my choruses to ‘Antigone’ will furnish an opportunity for a number of unfair and malignant attacks, still I cannot meet these unpleasant probabilities by the means which you are so good as to propose to me. I have always made it an inviolable rule, never to write on any subject connected with music, even in newspapers, nor either directly or indirectly to prompt any article to be written on my own compositions; and although I am well aware how often this must be both a temporary and sensible disadvantage, still I cannot deviate from a resolution which I have strictly followed out under all circumstances. I decline, therefore, accepting your obliging offer; but I beg you will believe that my gratitude for the friendly intentions you expressed remains the same; and in the hope of soon finding an opportunity to repeat this assurance in person, I am, etc.[53]