Mendelssohn: A Life in Music

by Todd, R. Larry

  Apart from the public concert, Felix’s other goal was to secure a Munich opera commission. When it arrived at the end of October, he proudly sent a copy to Berlin, 123 as evidence of his new professional stature. Authorized to “negotiate with any German poet of renown,” Felix began to search for a libretto—like so many of his operatic aspirations, an unfulfilled quest. In Stuttgart, he endeavored to consult Ludwig Uhland but missed the poet and proceeded to Frankfurt. There he shared his recent sacred music with Schelble, who suggested Felix compose a new oratorio, and thereby planted the seed for St. Paul . Felix enjoyed artistic exchanges with his cousin, Philipp Veit, director of the Städelsche Art Institute, but tactfully avoided mentioning the painter’s mother, Dorothea Schlegel, in letters to Berlin. Declaring himself a German musician, Felix arranged to meet the dramatist/novelist K. L. Immermann (1796–1840) in Düsseldorf and arrived there late in November, having first visited the music publisher Simrock in Bonn to discuss the publication of Op. 23.

  At the time of Felix’s encounter with Immermann (November 27–December 4), the writer had yet to produce his novels Die Epigonen (1836), treating the decline of the Westphalian aristocracy, and Münchhausen (1838), about the madcap adventures of a baron later linked to a mental illness. In 1832 Immermann would become the director of the theater in Düsseldorf; a few months before, Felix, thirteen years his junior, approached him for a libretto. The composer and dramatist left conflicting accounts of their meeting. Felix, who had heard Immermann could be prickly, reported the dramatist received him with the greatest friendship 124 (Abraham was unimpressed and recommended that Felix find a French libretto and translate it into German). Immermann admired Felix’s music, but detected in the unsolicited visit a “hook of egoism” and confided to his brother that the composer pursued him like a young maiden hanging onto her mother’s skirts. 125 The dramatist read portions of his new trilogy, Alexis , about Peter the Great’s son who was tortured to death in 1718, but the tragedy failed to inspire Felix’s operatic muse (in 1834, he did set the gloomy “Death Song of the Boyars,” from the first of the three plays, Die Bojaren ). Instead, the two took up Shakespeare’s comedy The Tempest . Felix then departed for Paris, confident he had secured a librettist.

  VI

  On December 9, he found the metropolis seething politically, as Louis-Philippe consolidated his rule by aligning himself with the newly empowered middle class (juste milieu ). The failed Bourbon monarchy of legitimacy was exchanged for an experimental parliamentary monarchy, and the “citizen king,” donning galoshes and carrying an umbrella, mixed freely with his subjects. The relaxed restrictions on the press rendered him an easy target, and Honoré Daumier’s caricatures depicted Louis-Philippe as a corrupt, pear-shaped monarch.

  In letters home Felix alluded to the baneful effect of the juste milieu on French culture. Politics and sensuality were the “two grand points of interest, round which everything circles.” 126 Felix attended sessions of the bicameral Chambers of Peers and Deputies. Euphoric from the revolution, citoyens were brandishing tricolored ribbons, and the parliament was reportedly preparing to debate whether all French males had the right from birth to wear the Order of the Legion of Honor. Egalitarianism swept over musical life as well. French pianos manufactured by Herz, Erard, and Pleyel all bore the inscription Médaille d’or: Exposition de 1827 , and Felix’s respect “seemed to diminish.” And when Kalkbrenner, who specialized in “purloining” themes, embraced romanticism in a piano fantasy titled Der Traum (The Dream ), Henri Herz followed suit with an equally vapid programmatic piece, so that “all Paris” dreamed. 127

  Nowhere did Felix decry more harshly the philistinism of the bourgeoisie than in Robert le diable , which premiered in November 1831 and catapulted his countryman Giacomo Meyerbeer into the forefront of French grand opera. Felix was particularly offended by a cloister scene in which nuns, including one played by the ravishing Italian dancer Marie Taglioni, attempted to seduce the hero; “I consider it ignoble,” he wrote somewhat prudishly, “so if the present epoch exacts this style, … then I will write oratorios.” Robert’s father, the satanic Bertram, who attempted to lead his son astray, was a “poor devil.” In Felix’s view the work pandered to everyone, with ingratiating melodies for singers, harmony for the cultured, colorful orchestration for the Germans, and dancing for the French, but ultimately its plot, stretched thin over five acts, remained implausible. 128

  According to Ferdinand Hiller, Felix cropped his hair to avoid being mistaken for Meyerbeer. 129 Nor did Felix find much companionship among other German emigrés in Paris, including adherents of the Young Germany movement, such as Ludwig Börne and Heinrich Heine, who, like Felix, had converted from Judaism to Protestantism but had embraced more liberal political ideologies. Börne had made a career of attacking Goethe for not turning his pen to promote just social causes; Börne’s unrelenting railing against Germany and his French “phrases of freedom” were repugnant to Felix, as was “Dr. Heine with everything ditto.” 130 Felix saw little of Heine, who was “entirely absorbed in liberal ideas and in politics,” and had infected Felix’s friend Hermann Franck, who like a magpie, now chattered “abuse against Germany.” 131 Matters were not helped when Felix learned of Goethe’s death on March 22; seerlike, Felix predicted that Zelter would soon follow the poet.

  Shortly after arriving in Paris Felix encountered his childhood friend Gustave d’Eichthal and Olinde Rodrigues, son of an acquaintance of Abraham. Both Jews, the two had joined the St. Simonians, a protosocialist-utopian sect founded in 1825 after the death of the philosopher Henri Saint-Simon. In the early days of the movement the disciples called for a redistribution of wealth based upon merit. By January 1832 they were recruiting artists and had attracted the interest of Balzac, George Sand, Heine, Berlioz, Hiller, and Halévy. During the 1830s Liszt toyed with the idea of the St. Simonian artist as a poet-priest of a new religion, and the impressionable composer Félicien David furnished music for the cult’s rituals and later joined a band of apostles attempting to reenergize the movement in Egypt. Of all the musicians in Paris who flirted with the sect, Felix steadfastly resisted its proselytizing zeal; but when he began to attend meetings, his indifference quickly changed to abhorrence. 132

  Though founded on the ideal of mutual dependence (members wore garments buttoned in the back that required the assistance of a confrère to don), the St. Simonians had evolved into a doctrinaire cult, over which the clownish père of the movement, Prosper Enfantin, presided. Enfantin expended great energy searching for a mère with whom to lead the sect and preached the “emancipation of the flesh”—i.e., free sex, a revelation that disgusted Felix. But in the main, it was Enfantin’s patronizing, authoritarian preaching that alienated the young Lutheran. Then, on January 22, 1832, the police summarily arrested the St. Simonians, an event witnessed by Hiller and Heine. Felix was there in spirit, for among the confiscated papers was a copy of his Piano Quartet in B minor, presumably performed at one of the sect’s gatherings. Tongue in cheek, he mused that only the slow movement belonged to the juste milieu ; the other, “revolutionary” movements would require a jury trial. 133

  As in 1825, Felix mixed with the French musical elite, though he again remained aloof from opera composers, excepting Cherubini, who examined Felix’s Tu es Petrus and caviled about its dissonance treatment. 134 The virtuosi had strengthened their grasp on musical culture (Heine compared them to locusts descending upon Paris), and Felix now had contact with several, including Franz Liszt, whom he had met in 1825. Felix’s earlier, unflattering estimation changed considerably when Liszt flawlessly sight-read the Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 25. 135 Considerably less pleasant were Felix’s dealings with the leading practitioner of salon music, Frédéric Kalkbrenner, who prided himself on dressing stylishly, his chest bedecked with medallions. In Berlin, Felix and Fanny had discovered that one of Kalkbrenner’s piano “improvisations” had already been published; Felix came to regard the pianist as a charlatan. Heine ha
d lampooned Kalkbrenner as a bonbon fallen in the mud, and Felix inserted unflattering comments in letters to Berlin, all judiciously deleted in nineteenth-century editions. Thus Kalkbrenner’s intrigues against Felix’s public appearances in Paris led him to contrast the pianist’s impeccably groomed exterior with a coarse, soiled interior. 136 Moreover, Felix was livid when Kalkbrenner advised a newly arrived pianist, Frédéric Chopin, to submit to a three-year course of study.

  On January 15, 1832, Chopin intended to make his Parisian debut under Kalkbrenner’s aegis at the salon of the Pleyel firm. The program featured Chopin’s Piano Concerto Op. 11 (accompanied by Baillot’s string quartet) 137 and a Grande-Polonaise by Kalkbrenner for six pianists, including Felix, Hiller, and Chopin. But the event was postponed, and when it finally occurred on February 26, Felix was relegated to the audience. Still, he established an affectionate relationship with Sciopino , for whom Felix crafted a three-part canon, at the bottom of which he left room for his friend to embroider a freely composed bass line. 138

  Among Felix’s new acquaintances in Paris was the young violinist Ole Bull, then introducing his Norwegian Hardanger fiddle to Paris, and the twelve-year-old prodigy Clara Wieck, escorted by her domineering father, Friedrich, intent upon promoting her budding career as a pianist. 139 Felix especially enjoyed his reunion with Pierre Baillot; the two played Felix’s chamber works, Mozart piano concertos, and violin sonatas of Beethoven and J. S. Bach (on one occasion Felix improvised on three subjects drawn from Bach). Felix performed his Op. 25 at Erard’s salon and Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto on March 18 before the French court at a Conservatoire concert, where his pianism evinced a “delicate talent, finished execution, and feeling deserving the highest praise.” 140 On February 19, after four rehearsals (at one Felix took up the timpani part), Habeneck gave the French premiere of the Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, but its success was tarnished by a dismal review from Fétis, still smarting from his contretemps with Felix in London nearly three years before. 141 No less disappointing was the failure to secure a performance of the Reformation Symphony; when Habeneck rehearsed the work, orchestra members rejected it as too learned (and, perhaps, too Protestant). And finally, Felix endured an absurd spectacle on March 26, at a memorial Mass for the anniversary of Beethoven’s death, when the scherzo of the Octet accompanied the priest’s rituals at the altar of L’Eglise de St. Vincent-de-Paul. The musicians indeed resembled Goethe’s “cursed dilettantes,” though the congregation considered the offering “very fine sacred music.” 142

  VII

  A number of old compositions haunted Felix during the Paris sojourn. Two French firms requested him to retouch the Piano Quartet in B minor, Op. 3, for a new edition, and he revised and dispatched the Octet to Breitkopf & Härtel on April 19. He was still unsatisfied with the Hebrides Overture, for its development section exuded more counterpoint than “train oil, gulls, and salted cod.” 143 Finally, when Baillot’s associates read through the String Quintet Op. 18, they found it wanting a slow movement. On Felix’s birthday in February, an unforeseen remedy materialized when he learned of the death of his boyhood friend and violin teacher, Eduard Rietz. In a few days, Felix drafted for the work a memorial Nachruf . Parts of this expressive Andante feature the first violin in its high register, including a second theme rising from the depths, as if recalling the lustrous solo writing fashioned for Rietz in the Octet.

  Among Felix’s new compositions were the Overture to Die erste Walpurgisnacht , finished in February, and the Sechs Gesänge , Op. 19 (now known as Op. 19a, to distinguish them from the Sechs Lieder ohne Worte , Op. 19b). Felix’s third collection of Lieder included three spring songs (Nos. 1, 2, and the miniature No. 5), the folksonglike Winterlied (from the Swedish), the Reiselied written in Venice (No. 6), and, the most successful, Neue Liebe (New Love ), on a poem of Heine. In this sprightly setting in F# minor (associated since Der Freischütz with the supernatural), the poet espies a train of elves in a moonlit landscape. The piano imitates their diminutive horn calls and bells, and all is couched in delicate Mendelssohnian tissues of sound. Seduced by the minuscule creatures, the poet wonders if they offer love or portend his death; the answer vanishes in a pianissimo puff.

  Considerably more substantial is the cantata Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh’ darein , finished on April 5, 1832, for Schelble’s Singverein. Like nearly all its siblings in the series begun in 1827, Ach Gott remained unpublished during Felix’s lifetime. The subject is Luther’s paraphrase of Psalm 12, with its contrasting images of a deceitful, vain world, and a responsive Lord, whose words are as pure as “silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” By far the most imposing movement is the first, which commences with rising chromatic lines and dissonant clashes, including duplicitous augmented triads that contravene our sense of tonal stability ( ex. 8.10 ). Only well into the movement does the Lutheran melody appear, intoned by the chorus in a stark unison for the third verse (“The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips”). But in the majestic A-major conclusion Felix replaces the familiar chorale by his own chorale melody for the Lord’s response to the oppression of the poor. The two, freely composed inner movements include a recitative (with verses from Psalm 103) and dark baritone aria in C# minor. The Lutheran melody reenters in the finale in full four-part harmony, initially in F# minor and then pivoting to A minor. As the composition concludes on a half cadence, the orchestra recalls phrases from the opening, giving the work a circular design. Fanny had misgivings about the tonal shifts in the finale, 144 and indeed, Felix’s dramatic treatment of the chorale—delaying its appearance in the first movement, and partitioning it in the finale through transposition—gives the composition less the appearance of a Bachian cantata than part of an oratorio. Just at this time Felix was beginning to envision plans for St. Paul , for which Ach Gott impresses as a preliminary study.

  Ex. 8.10 : Mendelssohn, Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh’ darein (1832)

  Felix’s devotion to sacred music during the grand tour resonated with Fanny, who responded in 1831 with two more cantatas of her own. The first (Hiob ), finished on October 1, possibly for her wedding anniversary, draws on verses from Job. 145 It begins with a troubled chorus in G minor on the searching question, “What is man, that thou shouldst magnify him?” (Job 7:17), stylistically indebted to the opening of Felix’s Psalm 115. Fanny’s middle movement exploits Handelian tone paintings for “Wherefore hidest thou thy face?” (13:24): pensive string tremoli and dark, chromatic harmonies recalling Israel in Egypt . In contrast, the third movement offers a buoyant finale in G major for “Thou hast granted me life and favor” (10:12). Here Fanny derives the head motive from that of the first movement, showing her ability to impose musical unity on a large form. But Hiob is overshadowed by another cantata composed between October 4 and November 20, 1831, on verses from the Old and New Testaments. Once considered an oratorio 146 —Fanny’s most substantial composition, it divides into thirteen choruses, recitatives, and arias—it is in fact a cantata marking the abatement of the cholera epidemic in Berlin in 1831. The calamity claimed the life of Fanny’s aunt Henriette (Jette) and the philosopher Hegel, who died days before Fanny completed her score. 147

  Drawing from the Psalms, Job, Isaiah, 2 Timothy, Revelation, and other scriptures, Fanny stitched together a three-part narrative, with a spiritual and emotional trajectory similar to that of Hiob , now expanded from the individual to a collective point of view. In the first part, God wreaks a catastrophic judgment on the faithless. The second culminates in a lament for the dead and a cappella chorus of the faithful confidently awaiting the Final Judgment. In the third, mankind confesses its sins, atones, and returns to God. The final chorus is a hymn of praise, culminating in the last verse of Psalm 150, “Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord” (later adopted by Felix as the motto of his Lobgesang Symphony). Animating much of Fanny’s cantata is the St. Matthew Passion; Fanny scores the work for orchestra, eight-part chorus, and four soloists, often atta
ins an intensely dissonant, chromatic style, and resorts to fugue and chorale. But there is also clear evidence of Fanny’s own awakening style and considerable advances in treating large forms. Much of the work is through-composed, and unifying the whole is a recurring, expressively drooping figure and taut tonal scheme, centered on G minor, but eventually progressing to C major. Most impressive is the range of choruses. In No. 6 the superimposed chorale melody “O Traurigkeit, O Herzeleid” recalls a similar technique in “O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sünde groß” from the St. Matthew Passion. In contrast, for No. 10, the chorus of the dead, Fanny conceptualized her own, “idealized” chorale melody in four-part hymn style for the famous verse from 2 Timothy, “I have fought the good fight.”