Painted by Begas.
[A] At this age he had written two operas and almost completed a third,—six symphonies, a quartet for piano and strings, a Cantata, six fugues for the piano, a psalm for four or five voices with a double fugue, and many minor pieces.—K. K.
We begin with the Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, in which the lad of sixteen sprang into fame a masterly composer. Well had he read his Shakespeare,—the bard who fascinates the heart and soul of childhood before any child can be supposed to understand him! What a felicitous reproduction of the fairy element in tones! The perfect fairy overture, it is still heard with delight by old and young, and ever will be, it is so fresh, spontaneous, genuine, such an honest emanation from the enthusiastic heart and imagination of the boy composer. The other movements now commonly sung and played with the drama were the afterthought of Mendelssohn's riper period, when he was thirty-four years old. Schumann says: "His music is a meditation on the play, a bridge between Bottom and Oberon, without which the passage into Fairy Land is almost impossible." The same fairy vein, the same dainty elfin motives, or some of the same family, are met in many of the earlier and later works of Felix. That vein haunted him; it was a lucky string to play upon. Ballad movements, Canzonettas, Volkslieder, and the like quaint melodies, abound as well. The Overture is numbered Op. 21. Sketched or completed about the same time were the Octet, Op. 20, the first set of the Songs without Words, and the first Quintet, in A; all works of ripe and finished art of a clearly asserted, pronounced individuality. These mark the culmination of his youthful period.
His early piano efforts are in many forms, mostly with strings. He wrote three Sonatas for piano solo, but soon ceased to cultivate that field (in face of Beethoven?). But he had already opened a new and original field for himself, albeit a less ambitious one, in the Songs without Words, a field to which he returned con amore from time to time until late in his short life. One is tempted to describe some of these choice little tone-poems, were there room; at least the three Gondola Songs. Had he been reading Shelley:
"My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which like a sleeping swan doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing."
These perhaps express the daintiest, most exquisite of the many moods and themes poetic, sentimental, picturesque, or wideawake and stirring or heroic, in these eight and forty wordless songs. Perhaps the last two sets have not quite the verve of the earlier and more spontaneous numbers. But think of the Volkslied, the hunting and the martial strains, the deeper meditations, the Duet, above all the exhilarating "Spring Song" in A! In these, if in nothing else, he opened a new field in musical art, in which many followed him, but none approached him. These Lieder ohne Worte are of his most genuine, most individual inspirations. There is hardly a characteristic trait of the composer's style, as developed in his larger works, which you do not find here clearly announced and pronounced in these perfect little miniatures. In them we have the whole of Mendelssohn,—we mean of the innate, the essential, not the acquired music of the man. If to some they have come to look commonplace, it is their own radiance that veils them.
Of his many other piano compositions, the most important are the Six Preludes and Fugues, Op. 35; another in E minor, full of fire and strength, his contribution to the Album "Notre Temps"; and the Variations Sérieuses. All the great composers, notably Beethoven, were fond of writing variations. Those of Mendelssohn are full of character, and often figure to advantage in the artistic programmes of pianists. For the piano with strings, the two Trios are the most interesting, and still challenge the chamber-concert givers. The two Sonatas with 'Cello also hold their own.
He loved to employ the piano with orchestra. The brilliant Capriccio in B minor, and the Rondo in E flat, swift as an arrow and going as straight to the mark, are concert favorites; still more the Serenade and Allegro Giojoso, full of life and charm. But most important, masterworks indeed, are the two Concertos. That in G minor, by the very fascination of its beauty, and by being such a model in form, so clear and pure throughout, has been practised so much in conservatories, and played at the début of so many callow virtuosos, that a shade of commonplace has settled over it. The other, in D minor, keeps itself more select, so that for the more exacting taste it is publicly too seldom played.