Good-by.
Yours,
F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
On his return to Leipzig he resumed his work with untiring energy; on the 22d of May of the following year (1836) he conducted the first performance of his Oratorio, “Saint Paul,” at the Düsseldorf Festival; he next went to Frankfurt to take the direction of the Saint Cecilia Choir, in place of his friend Schelble, who was incapacitated through illness. Here he first met that other Cecilia who was henceforth to become his guiding star, and who was eventually to exchange her name for his. They were engaged on the 9th of September, Mendelssohn’s mother communicating the welcome news to the Moscheles family.
Frankfurt, July 20, 1836.
My dear Friend,—It is an age since I wrote to you last; but it was a monotonous age, and I was not in a mood to write about it or anything else. Besides, you know that however much time passes without your hearing from me, there is not a day that does not in some way or other bring me nearer to you or remind me of your friendship, your work, and your life so beneficial to us all. I have not yet thanked you for that good kind letter of yours which reached me through Klingemann at the Music Festival, with your congratulations on its success. How the Oratorio went off you have heard long ago. There was much that pleased me at the performance, and much that dissatisfied me; and even now I am at work on certain parts of the pianoforte arrangement, which is to appear shortly, and on the orchestral score, so much is there that completely fails to express my idea,—in fact, does not even come near it. You have often advised me not to alter so much, and I am quite aware of the disadvantages of so doing; but if, on the one hand, I have been fortunate enough to render my idea in some parts of my work, and have no desire to change those, I cannot help striving, on the other hand, to render my idea in other parts, and, if possible, throughout.
But the task begins to weigh heavily upon me, as I am gradually more and more attracted by other work, and I wish I could look back upon the Oratorio as finally completed. Well, I hope in two months, at the outside, to send you the P. F. arrangement. But where will you be then? What a thing it is to be separated by land and sea! I hear a great deal about you and your work through people coming from London, and I read about it in the musical papers; besides, you write occasionally, and so does Klingemann; but if I compare all that with our meeting in Leipzig, or with those days in England, when it was a matter of course that I should know how you spent every morning and afternoon, then letter-writing does appear a very poor substitute. I suppose you will be going to the seaside on the English coast. I, too, am ordered sea-bathing, and shall have to swallow the bitter pill of a regular cure, and go in about a fortnight to Scheveningen, or rather to the Hague, where I can live quietly away from the bathing community, and drive out every morning to the sea for my ablutions. In the first days of September, when the Subscription Concerts begin, I must be back in Leipzig.
I wish I could finish a few Symphonies and that sort of thing in the course of the year, and more still I long to write an Opera; but of that I am afraid there is not the least prospect. I am looking in vain throughout all Germany and elsewhere for some one to help me realize this and other musical plans, and I despair of finding him. It is really absurd to think that in all Germany one should not be able to meet with a man who knows the stage and writes tolerable verses; and yet I positively believe there is none to be found. Altogether, this is a queer country. Much as I love it, I hate it in certain respects. Look at the musical men of this place, for instance; their doings are quite shameful. Considering the size and importance of the town, there is really a fair muster of excellent musicians, men of reputation and talent, who might do good work, and who, one would think, would do it willingly; so far that is the good side of Germany, but the fact is, they do nothing, and it were better they did not live together, and grumble, and complain, or brood over their grievances till it’s enough to give one the blues. Ries is by this time in England, I suppose; he considers he does not meet with due appreciation, and finds fault with the musicians, and yet does nothing to improve them. Aloys Schmidt takes his ease in the country, sighs over mankind in general,—a poor race at the best, full of envy and malice,—forgetting all the while that he, too, belongs to it. Hiller is here just now. People discuss wildly whether he is a great pianoforte-player or not, but they don’t go to hear him, and fancy that makes their judgment all the more impartial; so he, too, is leaving for Italy. The only man who succeeds is Guhr, who knows least and isn’t good for much; but he has a will of his own, and enforces it bon gré, mal gré, and the whole town lives in fear of him. But all that is bad, and the German Diet should interfere; for where so many musicians congregate in one place, they ought to be forced by the authorities to give us the benefit of a little music, and not only their philosophical views about it.