[46] This section of the chorus (No. 41), which Mendelssohn rejected almost at the eleventh hour, was a somewhat extended movement in D, eighty-six bars long. It started with the following subject in the soprano:
[[Listen]]
[47] According to the late Mr. J.W. Davison, "Mendelssohn was a long time uncertain whether he should add the oboe part, or limit the score to the string quartet."
[48] As a specimen of Grattan Cooke's humour, the following incident was related to me by a veteran musician who was a fellow-student of the witty oboeist at the Royal Academy of Music. At one of the early rehearsals of Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream" Overture, Cooke was missed from his place in the orchestra, and was soon afterwards seen walking up the room carrying a ladder. "What on earth have you got that for?" he was asked. Cooke replied: "He's written the notes so tremendously high, that I've brought a ladder to get up to them!"
[49] Mr. Charles Lockey.
[50] F. Edward Bache was then a boy of thirteen. His name does not appear in the official list of the Band; but Mr. Andrew Deakin's recollection of the event confirms the statement in Mrs. Bache's letter.
[51] I am much indebted to Mr. Russell Martineau, and the surviving members of Mrs. Bache's family, for their kind permission to use these interesting extracts.
[52] The words of this Recitative, probably written by the Rev. John Webb, first appeared in the word-book of the 1837 Festival, just after the accession of Queen Victoria. They supplanted those beginning "When King David was old," first sung in 1820. These new (Victorian) words were also used at the Festival of 1840, but not in 1843.
[53] This silver snuff-box, which cost nine guineas, bore upon it the following inscription:—