When Moscheles has a moment of leisure let him send me a line and his best love. No more room to sign my name.
Moscheles gives Mendelssohn full particulars of the Birmingham Festival. An Oratorio of the Chevalier Neukomm’s and an unusually large number of the same composer’s works figured in the programme. “His style is Haydn’s,” says Moscheles; “occasionally elevated and bordering on Handel, but when you go into detail, you find many hackneyed modulations and figures. For the higher development of Art he has not done much, but in his ‘David’ there are numbers showing excellent workmanship and much ability in the use of all the means at his disposal.”
A Fantasia on the Organ he entitled “A Concert on a Lake, interrupted by a Thunderstorm.” The poetical element was missing, and the introduction of incidental thunderclaps and forked lightning on the organ only served to show up the weakness of construction in the whole thing.
Moscheles goes on to describe with enthusiasm the performance of the “Messiah” and of some of the most effective Choruses selected from “Israel in Egypt.” In speaking of the brass instruments, he says that the ophicleide is a very useful addition to the orchestra in large performances; “for,” he remarks, “just as you say of a steam-engine, it has ten-horse power, so of this you can say, it has ten-trombone power.”
Düsseldorf, Dec. 25, 1834.
Dear Moscheles,—Upon my word, I cannot stand my own base ingratitude any longer! I really must write at last. And why haven’t I done so for the last two months? I really cannot say, and certainly cannot find an excuse. The monkeys on the Orinoco, I recollect reading somewhere, do not talk because they have nothing to say, and I suppose I was somewhat of their kind; and then really I was at first in no mood for anything and had plenty of time, and then I was in high spirits and had no time at all,—in fact, I procrastinated. And now that I am about it, what in the name of worry am I to write about from Düsseldorf to a Londoner, and to such a one as you? Really this is such a mite of a place, where nothing ever happens. I cannot possibly send you the news that the Tories are in power. Never mind; I write that I may soon again hear from you. It is just because your letters give me so much pleasure, and bring your interesting life so vividly before me, that I would rather say nothing about our petty provincial affairs. Whilst you are driving at headlong speed, we are really driven like a herd of cattle.
I have one fault to find with your letter. But for Klingemann, I should not have known that you had composed an Overture to “Joan of Arc;” yet you surely cannot doubt that that, of all news, would interest me most. I congratulate you with all my heart if only on the choice of such an excellent and serious subject. I long to hear the Overture itself, but you are absolutely silent about it; in fact, I am quite in ignorance of what you have composed lately, or what you have got in your mind. Please give me full particulars of it,—in what key it is, how it is worked out, and how scored. If possible, jot down a few notes for me. And have you written nothing new for the piano? It would be quite a boon, for there is great dearth in that line.
Thanks for your description of the Festival; it is so graphic and interesting that I could have fancied myself there: I hear Neukomm extemporizing, and see Miss Rylands in the box. (Your account and your wife’s must be taken together.)