Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
To Fanny Hensel, Berlin.
Leipzig, January 13th, 1843.
... We yesterday tried over a new symphony by a Dane of the name of Gade, and we are to perform it in the course of the ensuing month; it has given me more pleasure than any work I have seen for a long time. He has great and superior talents, and I wish you could hear this most original, most earnest, and sweet-sounding Danish symphony. I am writing him a few lines to-day, though I know nothing more of him than that he lives in Copenhagen, and is twenty-six years of age, but I must thank him for the delight he has caused me; for there can scarcely be a greater than to hear fine music; admiration increasing at every bar, and a feeling of congeniality; would that it came less seldom!
To A. W. Gade, Professor of Music, Copenhagen.
Leipzig, January 13th, 1842.
Sir,
We yesterday rehearsed for the first time your symphony in C minor, and though personally a stranger, yet I cannot resist the wish to address you, in order to say what excessive pleasure you have caused me by your admirable work, and how truly grateful I am for the great enjoyment you have conferred on me. It is long since any work has made a more lively and favourable impression on me, and as my surprise increased at every bar, and yet every moment I felt more at home, I to-day conceive it to be absolutely necessary to thank you for all this pleasure, and to say how highly I esteem your splendid talents, and how eager this symphony (which is the only thing I know of yours) makes me to become acquainted with your earlier and future compositions; but as I hear that you are still so young, it is the thoughts of those to come in which I particularly rejoice, and your present fine work, causes me to anticipate these with the brightest hopes. I once more thank you for it and the enjoyment I yesterday had.
We are to have some more rehearsals of the symphony, and shall probably perform it in the course of three or four weeks. The parts were so full of mistakes, that we were obliged to revise them all, and to have many of them transcribed afresh; next time it will not be played like a new piece, but as one familiar and dear to the whole orchestra. This was indeed the case yesterday, and there was only one voice on the subject among us musicians, but it must be played so that every one may hear it properly. Herr Raymond Härtel told me, there was an idea of your coming here yourself in the course of the winter. I hope this may be the case, as I could better and more plainly express my high estimation and my gratitude to you verbally, than by mere empty written words. But whether we become acquainted or not, I beg you will always look on me as one who will never cease to regard your works with love and sympathy, and who will ever feel the greatest and most cordial delight in meeting with such an artist as yourself, and such a work of art as your C minor symphony.—Your devoted
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.