To I. Moscheles, London.
Frankfort, March 7th, 1845.
My dear Friend,
It is so good and kind of you to write me a gossiping letter again, as in the good old times. I leave everything undone and untouched till I have answered you, and thanked you for all your continued friendship and kindness towards me. What you say of the English musical doings certainly does not sound very satisfactory, but where are they really satisfactory? Only within a man’s own heart; and there we find no such doings, but something far better. So little benefit is derived even by the public itself from all this directing and these musical performances,—a little better, a little worse, what does it matter? how quickly is it forgotten! and what really influences all this and advances and promotes it, are after all the quiet calm moments of the inner man, taking in tow all these public fallacies and dragging them to and fro as they well deserve. Probably you will say this is the way in which a domestic animal, or a snail, or an old-fashioned grumbler would speak; and yet there is some truth in it; and one book of your studies has had more influence on the public and on Art, than I do not know how many morning and evening concerts during how many years. Do you see what I am aiming at? I should like so very much to get the sonata as a duett, or the “Études” as duetts or solos, or in short something.
I much regret the affair with the Handel Society,[83] but it is impossible for me to alter my views on the subject. Though quite ready to yield in non-essential points, such as the mode of marking accidentals,—though, in this even, owing to the long bars, I prefer the old fashion—yet on no account whatever would I interpolate marks of expression, tempi, etc., or anything else, in a score of Handel’s, if there is to be any doubt whether they are mine or his; and as he has marked his pianos and fortes, and figured bass wherever he thought them essential, I must either leave these out altogether, or place the public under the impossibility of discovering which are his marks, and which are mine. To extract these signs from the pianoforte edition, and transfer them to the score, if mine are to be inserted, would cause very little trouble to any one who wishes to have the score thus marked; while, on the other hand, the injury is very great, if the edition does not distinguish between the opinion of the editor and the opinion of Handel. I confess that the whole interest I take in the Society is connected with this point, for the edition of the Anthems which I formerly saw, was of a kind, precisely owing to the new marking, that I could never adopt for performance. Above all, I must know exactly and beyond all doubt, what is Handel’s and what is not. The Council supported me in this opinion when I was present, now they seem to have adopted a contrary one; if this is to be followed out, I, and I fear many others, would much prefer the old edition with its false notes, to the new, with its different readings and signs in the text. I have already written all this to Macfarren. I am sure you are not angry with me for stating my opinion so candidly? it is too closely connected with all that I have considered right, during the whole course of my life, for me now to give it up.
André has just sent me the original score, to look over, of Mozart’s symphony in C major, “Jupiter;” I will copy for you something out of it that will amuse you. The eleven bars at the close of the adagio were formerly written thus:—
and so on to the end.
He has written the whole repetition of the thema on a separate leaf, and struck out this passage, bringing it in again only three bars before the end. Is not this a happy alteration? The repetition of the seven bars is to me one of the most delightful passages in the whole symphony!
Give my kind remembrances to your family, and retain a kindly regard for your
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.