MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY, FELIX. (1809-1847). German composer and one of the most gifted musicians of the 19th century. ALS. (“Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy”). 4pp. 8vo. Berlin, January 13, 1842. To pianist and composer JAKOB ROSENHAIN (1813-1894). In German with translation.

“It is a very great pleasure to have news of you & to see that you are still the same pleasant, faithful, good-natured friend. A thousand thanks for your letter. But next time you must not write a whole letter full of my affairs but of your own. You say nothing about yourself & that is what I should like best to hear about. Make up for it in your next letter, which I hope to have very soon. Now for a continuation of our conversation when we were walking back from Gohlis [a small town where Friedrich Schiller wrote the first version of “Ode to Joy,” the text Beethoven used in the fourth movement of his 9th Symphony.] to Leipzig. Do you remember it? A few weeks ago I received your piece in B minor with a few lines from you. I was delighted with it & it quite brought back to my mind those happy days & in thought I have often thanked you for it. Now I should like to know what new pieces you have. I have heard something about an opera but have you not something more for the piano? & songs, etc? Do write & tell me! The Wollzogens are here for the winter (of course one of them is married). Think how I should rise in their esteem if I brought fresh news of your doings! And, also my wife who is always your devoted pupil & admirer & wishes to be remembered to you: thank God, she & the children are as fresh & well as one could possibly wish. We have a fairly amusing time here but think every day of the good old times & would like to return to Leipzig. In the next few months we shall see if this wish is to be fulfilled. I was very interested in what you said of my work & the performance in Paris: many thanks. Yet I must confess that I promise myself very little results from it. Later, when I have succeeded in composing something better & bearing a more distinct stamp of the tendency that I have cultivated for myself, I may venture to hope that one or another of my works may make its way there: I doubt it for what I have written so far; they do not differ enough from those over there. But you can imagine nevertheless that it is a great pleasure & honor to me when something of mine is played there, especially when a man like Habeneck is interested in it. Give him my very kindest regards; I was very fond of him over there & he was so kind to me that I have often thought of him since then, not merely with respect and admiration but with real gratitude. Please tell him so, with my heartiest greetings. The metronome figures for my St Paul are found in the full score, published by Simrock in Bonn, & are indispensable for a performance of it. Do you think it advisable to begin with Fingal’s Cave Overture? Would it not be better for Habeneck first to have two or at least three overtures played at a rehearsal to see what appeals to the orchestra most? That is what I would wish done & would like to let him do so. Let me know sometime if he grants my wish & when he does, please correct an error in the printing of the full score & the parts in the ‘calm;’ the Allegro should be written ¢ instead of a C & so very quick the half beat like the quarter beat in Beethoven’s last part of his A major [7th] symphony. And fancy now to write an opera in Paris! You know how I should like to have the text written by Scribe & that for years I have been seeking a thoroughly beautiful subject for an opera. There are so many difficulties in the way in coming forward in Paris with a first work of that kind that I really could only think of doing so if I had produced a few operas on the stage in Germany & there is no prospect of that at present as I have no good material or text. Thank Habeneck for so kindly thinking of me regarding an opera & ask him if he knows of a beautiful subject to procure for me; I should regard it as the greatest service that could be rendered to me in my musical career. Please give my greetings from you & tell him I have not yet received the piece composed for the piano which he mentioned. If you see Baillot or Chopin kindly remember me to them. That is enough for today: farewell; write to me again soon...”

In the spring of 1829, Mendelssohn traveled to Scotland and his journey through the Scottish Highlands stimulated the composition of his Scottish Symphony, and a voyage to the island of Staffa and its Fingal’s Cave inspired his Hebrides Overture. The work was published in 1832, then reissued by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1834 with the name Fingalshöhle (Fingal’s Cave), which Mendelssohn refers to in our letter.

In 1835, Mendelssohn was appointed conductor of the celebrated Gewandhaus Orchestra at Leipzig, where he not only raised the standard of its performances, but made Leipzig the epicenter of Germany’s musical world. The following year, he premiered his St. Paul Oratorio, the precursor to his famous oratorio Elijah. The oratorio’s subject matter and its similarity to Mendelssohn’s identity as a converted Jew has been the object of much speculation. Popular during his lifetime, though now infrequently performed in its entirety, the St. Paul Oratorio includes many well-known themes such as the anthem Above all praise and majesty.

Beginning in 1841, Mendelssohn’s position at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus was augmented by a royal appointment to Berlin, whence he penned our letter at the beginning of the following year. Though his duties there were vague, tension between his Berlin post and Leipzig duties soon forced Mendelssohn to terminate his position with Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV who “appointed him general music director and entrusted him with the supervision and direction of sacred music. This meant that Mendelssohn, though still in the king’s service, had no binding duties and could instead devote himself entirely to the Gewandhaus orchestra,” (The New Grove Dictionary). In our letter Mendelssohn obliquely refers to his situation in Berlin, stating that he “would like to come back to Leipzig. In the next few months we shall see if this wish is to be fulfilled.”

Mendelssohn met Rosenhain in Leipzig around 1839, and in our letter he asks Rosenhain’s advice about an upcoming performance of his in Paris under the baton of French conductor François Antoine Habeneck (1781-1849), head of the Paris Opera.

Mendelssohn also writes about searching for a new subject for an opera and his desire to compose something written by librettist Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) who counted among his collaborators Auber, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Cherubini, Donizetti, Offenbach, and Verdi. His works include Les Huguenots, La Juive, Le Prophète, Les Vêpres siciliennes, and L’Africaine, to name a few. Mendelssohn’s 1821 song cycle Die beiden Pädagogen was written to a text taken from Scribe.

Mendelssohn sends his greetings to Polish composer and pianist Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), who was living in Paris and who had heard Mendelssohn play in Berlin in 1828. The two men met in 1834 at the Lower Rhenish Music Festival and, afterwards, Chopin visited Mendelssohn in Düsseldorf where they played music together. The following year, Mendelssohn organized a performance of his St. Paul Oratorio for Chopin in Leipzig.

French violinist and composer Pierre Baillot (1771-1842) was concertmaster of the Paris Opéra and a professor at the Conservatoire, where he authored the influential text L’Art du Violon. Together with Cherubini, Baillot played Mendelssohn’s Piano Quartet No. 3 in B minor to evaluate the 16-year-old for admission to the Conservatoire. Baillot is said to have been so moved by the work that he embraced Mendelssohn after the performance without uttering a word.

As a youth Mendelssohn received a “thorough, but very conservative, instruction. He was encouraged to follow Bach and Mozart, but not Beethoven [1770-1827]. Nevertheless, the boy found out Beethoven for himself and formed a deep appreciation and love of Beethoven’s final period, particularly the middle and late piano sonatas,” (“Felix Mendelssohn,” Prague Classical Concerts, pragueclassicalconcerts.com/en/composers/mendelssohn?presenter=Composer). Our letter mentions the fourth movement – Allegro con brio – of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major.

Mendelssohn also mentions his wife Cécile (née Jenrenaud) Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1817-1853), whom he married in 1837 and for whom he composed his Duett ohne Worte (Duet without words).

Written on four pages of a single, folded sheet, with light ink show-through. Folded and creased with some slight paper wrinkling at one edge. In fine condition and with the original envelope bearing an intact red wax seal.