On the eve of his departure from Berlin, Mendelssohn presented a most interesting and valuable gift to Moscheles, in the shape of one of those musical sketch-books in which Beethoven was in the habit of jotting down his inspirations as they came to him. These pages, eighty-eight in number, contain chiefly the first ideas for his grand Mass; their appearance can only be described as chaotic, and they are a puzzle even to the initiated. Over one of them the inkstand has been upset; and the master’s sleeve, or whatever he may have had at hand, has evidently made short work of the offending pigment. Another page—besprinkled with a few bars here, and a word or two of the Latin text there—is headed: “Vivace. Applaudite amici.” The illustration on the next page is a fac-simile of the dedication on the fly-leaf.
In a letter dated November, 1832, Mrs. Moscheles mentions to Mendelssohn that she hears the Philharmonic Society intends commissioning him to write three compositions for one hundred guineas; it is to this that his answer in the following letter refers. She gives him full particulars of her husband’s artistic activity, and such news about personal friends as would interest him, and winds up by saying: “Moscheles has just waked from his siesta by the comfortable fireside. You must look upon these pages as if they reflected his dream; for his thoughts, awake or asleep, are constantly with you.”
Berlin, Jan. 17, 1833.
Dear Mrs. Moscheles,—How good and kind of you to give me such graphic details! I felt quite happy and cheerful as the fireside, Moscheles’s siesta, and the whole establishment, snug and cosy as it is, rose before my eyes. I rejoice like a child at the thought of next spring, of my dignity as a godfather, of green England, and of a thousand things besides. My melancholy is beginning to vanish. I have again taken a lively interest in music and musicians, and have composed some trifles here and there; they are bad, it is true, but they give promise of better things,—in fact, the fog seems lifting, and I again see the
4. Fac-simile of Mendelssohn’s Dedication to Moscheles upon the Fly-leaf of Beethoven’s Musical Sketch-Book. ([See page 48].)