'At half-past eleven o'clock,' wrote one who was present on the occasion, 'a deafening shout from the band and chorus announced the approach of the great composer. The reception he met with on stepping into his place from the assembled thousands was absolutely overwhelming, whilst the sun, emerging at that moment, seemed to illumine the vast edifice in honour of the bright and pure being who stood there, the idol of all beholders.' The applause which broke forth at the end of the first part gave a sufficient indication of the impression which the audience had formed of the work, and at the conclusion the enthusiasm was such that the entire assembly rose to their feet, and shouted and waved for several minutes.
It was over, and Mendelssohn's gratification at his reception was expressed in the letter which he wrote to his brother Paul the same evening: 'No work of mine ever went so admirably at the first performance, or was received with such enthusiasm both by musicians and the public as this.... I almost doubt if I can ever hear one like it again.'
In April of the following year four performances of the 'Elijah' took place at Exeter Hall under his conductorship, the Queen and Prince Albert gracing the second performance with their presence. This was destined to be his last visit to these shores, and when he departed, after fulfilling a round of engagements which tried his strength to its uttermost limits, it was with the haunting shadow of coming illness. Scarcely had he rejoined his family at Frankfort than a messenger brought the sad intelligence that his sister Fanny had died suddenly at Berlin; the news was broken to him all too suddenly, and with a loud shriek he fell to the ground in a swoon.
From that moment his spirits failed him; there was no rebound from the deep depression into which he had fallen—only occasional flickerings of his former self showed that the struggle to assert his will-power over an ever-increasing loss of physical strength was still going on. There were moments, indeed, when it seemed to himself, if not to those who watched him with growing anxiety, that he was regaining his old buoyancy—the old craving for work which nothing seemed to have the power to destroy. But though compositions still came from his pen, though he had not yet given up hope in himself—'You shall have plenty of music from me; I will give you no cause to complain,' he had remarked to an English publisher shortly before this time—it was plain to those nearest to him that the inexorable finger of death was pointing the way to the Valley of Shadows.
The streets of Leipzig were flooded with sunshine, though November had just entered upon its course, and though the approach of winter was apparent in the crispness of the air. Yet a cloud overhung the town which no degree of atmospheric brightness could dispel—a cloud of sorrow which took its birth from the placards affixed to the street corners, and spread its shadow over street after street, from one knot of inquirers to another, until the brief announcement which those placards conveyed became the common news, the common sorrow, of all. Mendelssohn was dead. On the evening of the previous day (November 4, 1847) the master whose bright, genial spirit had endeared him to so many hearts beyond the confines of his own circle, had passed to his rest. The blow had fallen with terrible swiftness, and we who love his music can only faintly realise how keenly those who knew and loved him, and who had come within the influence of his happy nature, must have felt the sudden break in that continuous flow of harmony which his life presented. Sweet as summer wind across the garden, wafting scents of choicest flowers, his life had passed over like a breath of heaven.
Without doubt his was a beautiful life—one of which, as it has been truly said, 'there is nothing to tell that is not honourable to his memory, and profitable to all men.' We cannot separate—we can have no wish to separate—such a life from the genius which enriched it, because the noble ideals which governed it throughout were embodied and expressed in the creations of that genius, as well as in his private conduct; rather should we be content to accept his life as it stands—in actions, deeds, and works—as a priceless gift, an indivisible whole.
Mendelssohn's funeral was a very imposing one. The first portion of the ceremonies was performed at Leipzig, and was attended by crowds of musicians and students—one of the latter bearing on a cushion the silver crown presented to the composer by his pupils, side by side with the Order 'Pour le Mérite' conferred upon him by the King of Prussia. As the long procession went on its way to the Pauliner Church the band played the 'Song without Words' in E minor, and at the close of the service the final chorus from Bach's 'Passion' was sung by the choir. At night the body was conveyed to Berlin for interment in the family burial-place in the Alte Dreifaltigkeits Kirch-hof. His resting-place, marked by a cross, is beside that of his sister Fanny, whilst on the other side of him rests his boy Felix, who died four years later.