To Fanny Hensel, Rome.
Leipzig, January 4th, 1840.
This little page shall go to Rome from here,
And wish you prettily a good new year.
You see my letter begins in the true ballad-monger style; if you chance to be in the Coliseum at the moment you receive it, the contrast will be rather grotesque. Whereabouts do you live in Rome? Have you eaten broccoli and ham? or zuppa Inglese? Is the convent of San Giovanni and Paolo still standing? and does the sun shine every morning on your buttered roll? I have just played to Ferdinand Hiller your Caprices in B flat major, G major, E major, and F major, which surprised us both; and though we tried hard to detect the cloven foot in them, we could not do so,—all was unmixed delight. Then I vowed at last to break through my obstinate silence. Pray forgive it! It happened thus:—First came the christening, and with it my mother and Paul. In the meantime the subscription concerts had begun; then my mother left us; then Paul, a fortnight later; then came Hiller to stay with us, intending to remain a week, heard a couple of rehearsals, and decided to remain the whole winter, for the purpose of completing his oratorio of “Jeremiah,” and producing it here in March; then came an abominable cold and catarrh, which for three weeks confined me to bed, or to my room, but always in very bad humour; then came Breitkopf and Härtel, begging to have the manuscript of my second set of four-part songs, which they have now got, and the trio, which they have not yet got; then came the copyist, petitioning for the score of the new Psalm, which was performed most gloriously the day before yesterday, as a commencement to the new year’s concert; then came 116 friends; then came Madame Pleyel, who counts for 216 more, and she played the piano right well; then came Christmas, to which I was forced to contribute fourteen gifts, some musical, some pictorial, some practical, and some juvenile; and now comes the benefit concert of Madlle. Meerti,—so here you have an abrégé of my histoire universelle since my last letter.
But tell me, for Heaven’s sake, what are you doing at Rome? “The finest part of the old hole is its situation,” said General Lepel once; but he is mistaken. There are still greater charms within her walls. What do you say, by the bye, to the drone of the Pifferari, whom the painters paint so admirably, and which produce such indescribable sensations in every nose, while sounding through it?—and to the church music in St. Luigi dei Francesi and others? I should like to hear you on that subject. Can you tell me the names of all the Cardinals from a mere glimpse of their hoods or trains? I could do this. When you are with a certain Madame by Titian in the Sciarra Palace, and with two other certain Mesdames also by him (the one in a state of nature, the other unfortunately not) in the Borghese Palace,[38] or with the ‘Galatea’ or any other Raphael, if you do not then think of me, and wish I were in Rome, I shall assuredly in that case wish you were the Marchesa Muti Papazurri, whose breadth is greater than her height, and that is five feet six inches. I will now give you some advice. Go to Monte Testaccio, and settle yourself comfortably in one of the little inns there; you will feel precisely the same as if you were in Rome. If you have already seen Guido’s ‘Aurora.’ be sure you go to see it again. Mark well the horrible fifths of the Papal singers when they adorn each of their four parts at the same moment with flourishes. On a fine Sunday, go on walking the whole day, till the sun sets, and it becomes cool; then come down from Monte Pincio, or wherever you may be, and have your dinner. Compose a vast deal, for it gets on famously at Rome. Write me soon a long letter. Look out of the windows of any convent near the Lateran, towards the Albano mountains. Count the houses in Frascati in the sunshine; it is far more beautiful there than in all Prussia and Poland too.
Forgive this harebrained letter, for I could not make it better. Farewell, dearest Fanny. May God bless you, and your journey, and your whole year; and continue to love your
Felix.
To I. Fürst, Berlin.
[On the subject of a Libretto that he was writing for an Opera.]
Leipzig, January 4th, 1840.
Dear Fürst,
You upbraid me extravagantly in the beginning of your welcome letter, but at its close you draw so admirable a moral, that I have only to thank you anew for the whole. You do me injustice in suggesting that my sole reason for wishing to see the scenarium is that I may raise difficulties from the starting-point, and bring the child into the world forthwith in its sickly condition.
It is precisely on opposite grounds that I wish this, in order to obviate subsequent difficulties and organic maladies. If these are, as you declare, born with him, it is best to abstract them from the child, while it is still possible, without injuring every part; if the injury admits of a remedy at all, it can now be cured, without attacking the whole organization.
No longer to speak figuratively, what deters me, and has always hitherto deterred me from the composition of a libretto is neither the verse, nor the individual words, nor the mode of handling (or whatever you call it), but the course of the action, the dramatic essence, the march of events,—in short, the scenarium. If I do not consider this to be good and solid in itself, then my firm conviction is that the music will not be so either, nor the whole satisfy the pretensions that I must make in executing such a work, though they may indeed entirely differ from those which are usually made, and from those of the public. But I have long since given up all idea of conforming to their tastes, simply for this reason, that is impossible; so I must follow the dictates of my own conscience, now as ever.
Planché’s text can never, even with the best will on both sides, become such a work as I want; I am almost disposed to give up my purpose as utterly hopeless. I would rather never compose an opera at all, than one which from the very commencement I considered only indifferent; moreover I could not possibly compose for such a one, were you to give me the whole kingdom of Prussia to do so. All this, and the many annoyances certain to occur at the completion of a text, if I should not feel disposed to undertake it, render it my duty to proceed step by step, and rather to move too slowly than too hastily; on this account I have resolved, unless we first agree about the scenarium, never to beguile any poet into undertaking so laborious a work, which may after all prove vain. This scenarium may be prolix or brief, detailed or merely sketched,—on these points I do not presume to dictate, and quite as little, whether the opera should be in three, four, or five acts; if it be really good, just as it is written, then eight acts would not be too many for me, nor one too few, and I say the same as to a ballet or no ballet. The only criterion is, whether it harmonizes or not with the musical and other existing feelings of my nature; and I believe that I am able to discern this quite as well from the scenarium as from the finished text, and that is moreover a point which no one can decide save myself personally.
I have thus placed the whole truth before you, and Heaven grant that all these things may not deter you from writing an opera, that you may also entrust it to me for composition, and that I may at length through you see a long-cherished wish fulfilled. I need not tell you how eagerly I shall await your decision.—Yours,
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.