To Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
Leipzig, December 7th, 1840.
Dear Brother,
Just as I was about to write to you yesterday, to thank you cordially again and again for the fresh proof of your true brotherly love which you have given me,[44] your letter arrived, and I can only repeat the same thing. Even if the affair leads to nothing further than to show me (what is the fact) that you participate in my wish once more to pass a portion of our lives together, that you, too, feel there is something wanting when we are not all united in one spot; this is to me invaluable, and more gratifying than I can express. Whether it be attended with a happy result or not, I would not give up such a conviction for anything in the world.
Your letter, indeed, demands mature deliberation, but I prefer replying to it at once, for the coincidence of Herr Massow’s journey is most fortunate, and you can thus hear my opinion before your interview with him.
I am prepared to acknowledge to the utmost extent the high honour conferred on me, and the excellence of the position offered to me. On this very account, however, I wish to obviate any difficulties, and to make the matter as clear as possible. One thing occurs to me in the proposal, which you can perhaps remedy in your conversation with Massow. It would not be easy to explain it by letter, and at all events it would lose much time, and not further the affair.
You may remember the general overtures as to the Academy and school for music that you brought me, and you know that I named the concerts as a positive stipulation; on the other hand, I said to you, that without a definite sphere of work (as an appointed composer, like Grimms, you can say) I should hesitate much to accept the proposal. Either of these situations would suit me, but not the two combined. I would at once most decidedly refuse this, much as I should regret being obliged to do so, and however advantageous it might seem to me in other points. Your condition No. 2, sets forth that I am to be director of the musical classes, without any definite sphere of work, etc.; and then No. 4 declares that I am to give sundry concerts every year,—but that is a combination to which I never can consent. For instance, were I to undertake to give concerts in Berlin (and the acceptance of these proposals would render it my duty so to do, even towards you), then I must stand in a different relation to the orchestra from what I could possibly do as the mere director of the music classes. I must be quite as much their real chief there as I am here, and as every ordinary director must be, which is only possible by the establishment of a Musical Academy as a Royal Institution, and by its connection with the orchestra in Berlin. The number, too, of such concerts should not be very limited, as you say, otherwise they would not repay the trouble of such great preparations. In a word, you may easily perceive that I can only accept proposals that either define every point, or are confined to my personal, and not to my official position; if the two are to be blended, I cannot consent to undertake them.
Finding (after you left us) on more mature deliberation that a situation as a composer is impossible, and, in fact, is nowhere to be met with, it occurred to me that the offer might be renewed of a public sphere of activity, and that I am quite prepared to accept; it must, however, be within special limits, despotic as regards the musicians, and consequently imposing even in outward position (not merely brilliant in a pecuniary point of view), otherwise, according to my ideas, it would be fatal to my authority after the very first rehearsal. I merely say all this, in order to indicate to you the point of the compass for which you must steer your course, in your conversation with Massow, and that the affair may pursue as clear a path as possible.—Ever your
Felix.