Dear Mrs. Moscheles,—I regret that I am engaged for dinner and evening, and see no possibility of getting off, however much I should like it. But I trust you will let me call as soon as I have moved into my Portland Street quarters (I am doing so to-day), and ask when I may come instead. I am much obliged to Mr. Moscheles for desiring to see some of my new things; and if he will promise to let me know when he has had enough of them, I will one of these days bring a cab-full of manuscript and play you all to sleep.
Excuse this hasty line of
Your migrating
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
During the following months they spent many pleasant hours together. Mendelssohn brought the “cab-full;” and amongst other compositions it contained his sacred Cantata on a Chorale in A minor, a Chorus in sixteen parts (“Hora est”), and a stringed Quartet in A minor; and Moscheles finds in the works of the young composer “a solid substratum of study, and the rarest and most promising of natural gifts.” He soon became a favorite in all circles of London society, always welcome as an artist and as a genial companion. His Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was performed, and met with an enthusiastic reception.
What he writes of his Double Concerto is so bright that we quote his own words:—
“Yesterday Moscheles and I had a first trial of my Double Concerto in E in Clementi’s piano-manufactory. Mrs. Moscheles and Mr. Collard were our audience. It was great fun; no one has an idea how Moscheles and I coquetted together on the piano,—how the one constantly imitated the other, and how sweet we were. Moscheles plays the last movement with wonderful brilliancy; the runs drop from his fingers like magic. When it was over, all said it was a pity that we had made no cadenza; so I at once hit upon a passage in the first part of the last tutti where the orchestra has a pause, and Moscheles had nolens volens to comply and compose a grand cadenza. We now deliberated, amid a thousand jokes, whether the small last solo should remain in its place, since of course the people would applaud the cadenza. ‘We must have a bit of tutti between the cadenza and the solo,’ said I. ‘How long are they to clap their hands?’ asked Moscheles. ‘Ten minutes, I dare say,’ said I. Moscheles beat me down to five. I promised to supply a tutti; and so we took the measure, embroidered, turned, and padded, put in sleeves à la Mameluke, and at last with our mutual tailoring produced a brilliant concerto. We shall have another rehearsal to-day; it will be quite a picnic, for Moscheles brings the cadenza, and I the tutti.”[2]