Dear Schubring,
Many, many thanks for your letter, which I received the day before yesterday, and for the parcel, which came to-day. You have again rendered me an essential service, and I feel most grateful to you; how can you ask whether I wish you to proceed in the same way? When all is so well put together, I have almost nothing to do, but to write music for the words. I ought to have previously told you, that the sheets you took away with you are by no means to be regarded as containing a mature design, but as a mere combination of the materials I had before me for the purpose of eventually forming a plan. So the passage of the widow, and also of the raven, being left out, is decidedly most advisable, and also the whole commencement being abridged, in order that the main points may be dwelt on to one’s heart’s content. I would urgently entreat you to proceed with your work, so far as your time and leisure will permit, and soon to send me the continuation of the first part, from where you left off, and which must now be of considerable length. Rest assured that, as I already told you, you will earn my most sincere gratitude.
You say that at first, you could not make anything of the subject, but that a sudden light dawned on you. I figured to myself Elijah as a grand, mighty prophet, such, as we might again require in our own day energetic and zealous, but also stern, wrathful, and gloomy; a striking contrast to the Court myrmidons and popular rabble,—in fact, in opposition to the whole world, and yet borne on angels’ wings. Is this the inference you drew from the subject, and this the sense in which you conceived an affection for it? I am anxious to do justice to the dramatic element, and, as you say, no epic narrative must be introduced. I am glad to learn that you are searching out the real sense of the Scriptural words, which cannot fail to touch every heart; but if I might make one observation, it is that I would fain see the Dramatic Element more prominent, as well as more exuberant and defined,—appeal and rejoinder, question and answer, sudden interruptions, etc. etc. Not that it disturbs me, for example, Elijah first speaking of the assembling of the people, and then forthwith addressing them. All such liberties are the natural privileges of such a representation in an oratorio; but I should like the representation itself to be as spirited as possible; for instance, it annoys me that Elijah does not reply to Ahab’s words, No. 16 till No. 18; various other speeches and a chorus intervening. I should like to have had an instant and eager rejoinder, etc. etc.
But we shall no doubt presently agree on such points, and I would only entreat you, when you resume your work, to think of this wish of mine. Above all, accept my thanks for your kindness, and write to me soon on the same subject.—Ever your
Felix M. B.
To his Family.
Leipzig, November 5th, 1838.
I have felt unequal to resume the train of my musical compositions since the measles. You cannot conceive the chaos that accumulates round me, when I am obliged neither to write, nor to go out, for three weeks. At last, here I am, correcting the parts of my three violin quartetts, which are to appear this winter, but I never can contrive to complete them, owing to so many letters, and affairs, and other odiosa. The Shaws are here, who don’t know one word of German, and not many words of French, and yet they live with thorough, downright Leipzigers, who only speak their Leipzig vernacular; and Bennett, with two young English musicians, and six new symphonies, and letters, and passing strangers, and rehearsals, and Heaven knows what all the other things are, which swallow up the day, leaving no more trace than if it had never existed. Truly the most delightful of all things is to be enabled to store up precious and enduring memorials of past days, to tell that these days were; and the most hateful of all things is, when time passes on, and we pass with it, and yet grasp nothing.
I am reading Lessing just now frequently, with true enjoyment and gratitude. At the end of the most fatiguing day, this famous fellow makes me feel quite fresh again; though Germany fares rather badly when you read his letters to his grandfather, or to Nicolai, Gleim, and Eckert; and yet Lessing wrote in German, and in such German, too, that it cannot be well translated!