“Herewith you receive the youngest child of my fancies, my ‘Concerto Pastorale.’ It has not yet seen the light of the musical world, and it is still a question whether it is destined to take a place in the goodly company of similar productions. So, in the mean while, I leave it under your kind care; in your hands it is bound to thrive.”
Moscheles sold the copyright of Mendelssohn’s Op. 24, mentioned in the preceding letter, to Messrs. Addison & Beale for twenty guineas. He says he has taken the liberty of altering some notes in the arrangement, so that nothing should stand in the way of its becoming popular with the young ladies.
David played his new Concerto at the Philharmonic on the 18th of March, and met with the most brilliant success. There, as in other concerts and musical gatherings, the purity of his style and his masterly execution were warmly appreciated.
All that Mendelssohn had written about his personal and artistic qualities was fully endorsed by Moscheles and his circle of friends. He soon became a favorite in Chester Place; and the foundation was laid for that friendship which was firmly cemented in later years, when he and Moscheles were colleagues at the Leipzig Conservatorio for nearly a quarter of a century.
Leipzig, Feb. 27, 1839.
My dear Friend,— ...Your kind letter of the 18th crossed mine on the road, and told me the disagreeable tale of the measles. How trying for all of you, especially for your dear wife! And yet it is better to go through it in your early days than to wait till you are a sedate and sober married couple like ourselves, who ought to be educating their children and conducting Oratorios, and have to lie in bed instead. However, I am thankful to say that we are out of the wood, and out of the maze of concerts too, and I’m at my own work again, and there I always feel like a fish in the water.
But now comes the letter with the “Concerto Pastorale” (hear, hear!).[37]