This of course applies to choral music, but all the same a sound and progressive taste in one style is sure to affect the general judgment, and what is true of the oratorio will soon become equally so of the symphony, of chamber music, and of the other forms of composition.

Mendelssohn’s Character

Although from his youth up Mendelssohn exhibited a marked spontaneity of manner and freedom from the ordinary conventional restraints of life, yet there was all the time a serious side to his character which made itself manifest quite early in his career. Ferdinand Hiller relates that when Mendelssohn’s teacher, Aloys Schmitt, brought him as a boy to visit Hiller, as they approached the house Hiller, unobserved by them, saw from the window with what gaiety of demeanour Mendelssohn behaved, running behind and leaping on Schmitt’s back in a boisterous and uncontrolled manner, full of life and vigour. When they entered the house, however, while the youth was unconstrained, yet he became quite grave and dignified in his manner, and expressed, in what Hiller thought almost over-ripe a fashion, his views about art and artists. Later in life the same characteristic of restraint showed itself under circumstances of such perennial interest that the story may again be told.

While residing in Frankfort-on-Main, Mendelssohn made the acquaintance of a certain family named Jean-renaud, the head of the household being a widow whose husband had been the pastor of the French Reformed Church. By his frequent visits to the house, it soon became evident that Mendelssohn was attracted in no ordinary way. But such was his demeanour that, although it was really the daughter Cécile to whom his heart went out, his friends were under the impression that the mother, who was still an attractive woman, was the load-star. To Hiller, with whom he was on terms of intimacy, Mendelssohn revealed his true feelings, and spoke with all the enthusiasm of young love of his regard for Fräulein Cécile. Hiller naturally looked daily for the usual climax, when to his astonishment he learned that Mendelssohn had suddenly left Frankfort and gone to Holland, where he stayed for a month. This he did, as he afterwards told Hiller, deliberately to test how much and how truly he was in love. On his return, having no doubt proved the genuineness of his feelings, he became formally engaged to the young lady, and early in the following year (1837) they were married.

Mendelssohn’s Chamber Music

It is not easy even now to deal equitably with Mendelssohn’s chamber music, for his abundant and charming melody, combined with a clear and transparent style, are apt to beguile the judgment, and to obscure the fundamental truths whereby all art must be tried. The slow movement and the scherzo of the E minor String Quartett, for example, are admirable, and even though they may not be said to have added anything to the form in which they are written, yet the pure and elevated beauty of the music is entirely satisfying. On the other hand, some movements, such as the String Quartett op. 44 in D major, are, as has been often remarked, quite orchestral in style and effect, and the same may be said of the Quartett op. 80. Mendelssohn also set a pattern in the two Piano Trios, which has been too much followed by later composers, whereby the piano part dominates and tends to obscure the other instruments. Especially in some movements of the D minor op. 49 is this the case, whereby the balance of parts is disturbed, and the artistic value lowered, of a work otherwise crowded with beautiful ideas.

Professor Ritter,[22] in discussing Mendelssohn’s position, says “he was more lyric than dramatic, more refined than profound, more conventional than original,” a judgment which is, in a general sense, in accord with that of another competent authority, who, speaking of Mendelssohn, writes:—“It has not been the lot of many men to win so much affection, or to give so much pleasure. His various gifts were in constant employment for the benefit of all people who were capable of enjoying music and good company; and he squeezed as much work into his short life as most men get into a life of twice the length. The spirit in the end wore out the body; indeed it seems wonderful that it stood the strain so long. But his nature would not allow him to live otherwise, and the enjoyment of all the things which came in his way was a necessary condition to enable him to produce the happy genial style of music which is characteristic of him.... He was too full of occupation to brood over the troubles of the world, or to think much of tragedies and the stern workings of fate; but all moods must have their expression in art, and those which were natural for him to express he dealt with in the most delicate and artistic way, and the results have afforded healthy and refined pleasure to an immense number of people.”[23]

The following are Mendelssohn’s principal chamber music compositions:—

Schumann