If I may be allowed to renew my request that you will give lessons to my two eldest children, be good enough to let me know your terms. I should like them to begin at once, that they may profit as much as possible during the time of your stay here.
With sincere regard and esteem, yours,
L. Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
The relative positions of teacher and pupil were soon to be exchanged for friendship of a lasting character,—Moscheles, on the one hand, greeting with the most cordial sympathy the great promises of the youthful genius; Mendelssohn, on the other, appreciating with all the warmth of his artistic nature what had been achieved by the maturer artist, his senior by sixteen years.
In the autumn of 1826 Moscheles, then again on a concert tour through Germany, made a short stay in Berlin, and spent many happy hours with his friends the Mendelssohns. Felix had just completed his Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and played it, arranged for two performers, with his sister Fanny. Amongst other compositions that mark these early days of his musical career, were the Sonata in E major and an Overture in C. Moscheles in his diary expresses his warm appreciation of those works, and comments at the same time on the fact that “this young genius is so far scarcely recognized beyond the small circle of his teachers and personal friends. One more prophet,” he adds, “who will have to lay the foundation of fame in another country.”
On the eve of Moscheles’s departure from Berlin, Mendelssohn sent him his E major Sonata with the following lines:—
Berlin, Nov. 28, 1826.
You kindly expressed a wish, dear Mr. Moscheles, to have my Sonata, and I therefore take the liberty of presenting it to you. Should you occasionally come across it, let it remind you of one who will always esteem and respect you.