OVERTURE, "BECALMED AT SEA AND PROSPEROUS VOYAGE": Op. 27
Mendelssohn's Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt[107] was written in illustration of two short and contrasted poems by Goethe, entitled Meeres Stille and Glückliche Fahrt (published in 1796). They have been translated into English prose as follows:
"BECALMED AT SEA"
"A profound stillness rules in the water; the ocean rests motionless; and the anxious mariner looks on a smooth sea round about him. No breeze in any quarter! Fearful quiet of death! Over the monstrous waste no billow stirs."
"PROSPEROUS VOYAGE"
"The fog has lifted, the sky is clear, and the Wind-god looses the hesitant band. The winds sough, the mariner looks alive. Haste! Haste! The billows divide, the far-off grows near; already I see the land!"
The overture was composed in 1828, and revised five years later. The introduction (Adagio) pictures the ominous calm, the deathlike quiet of the waters, the vast and motionless expanse of windless sea. The flute-calls which end this first section have been interpreted as "the cry of some solitary sea-bird," as "whistling for the wind," as a portrayal of "dead silence and solitude." Then follows (Molto allegro vivace) the picture of the sudden and inspiriting change which comes with the springing up of the breeze—the clearing of the sky, the joyous resumption of the voyage, the exhilarated spirits of the mariners. The conclusion suggests the happy arrival in port, the salutes, the dropping of the anchor.