A second series of piano pieces now evolved into the Lieder ohne Worte , Op. 30. Despite lackluster sales of Op. 19b in England, Felix had continued to craft piano Lieder, including Op. 30 Nos. 5 and 4, and Op. 38 No. 2. 201 Two new Lieder followed early in 1835, Op. 38 No. 3 and 53 No. 2, both composed for Clara Wieck. 202 Felix then paused to compile a discrete opus. The result, sent to Simrock on March 28, 1835 as Op. 30, 203 again juxtaposed examples of the lyrical solo Lied (No. 1), duet (No. 6), and part-song (No. 3) with character pieces (Nos. 2, 4, and 5). At least two Lieder were directly associated with women: No. 2 (B ♭ minor) had celebrated the birth of Fanny’s son, Sebastian, while No. 6 (F# minor) was inscribed in the album of Henriette Voigt, a Leipzig pianist and musical amateur, 204 as Felix’s second Venetian Gondellied . Strengthening the association of the genre with the feminine, Felix dedicated the entire opus to Elise von Woringen, daughter of Otto von Woringen, one of Felix’s principal supporters in Düsseldorf. The Lieder appeared from German, French, and English firms on May 1, 1835, a simultaneous effort that fell short of perfection: at least one piece, the etudelike No. 4, reveals discrepancies between the first editions. Felix, it seems, continued to revise the opus for Simrock, even after manuscript copies had been dispatched to Paris and London. 205
XII
After Felix’s visit to Leipzig in October 1834, the idea of attracting him to that city quickly gained momentum. The principals behind this effort were the music publisher C. F. Kistner, attorney and amateur singer H. K. Schleinitz, and founding editor of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung , Friedrich Rochlitz; all three belonged to the board of directors of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Almost certainly Franz Hauser was involved in facilitating the negotiations. Curiously, the initial offer to Felix was for a professorship at the university, a proposal he declined early in January 1835, since he regarded himself a practical musician who had never left a colloquium about music without “feeling more unmusical.” 206 By the middle of the month he had received a new offer, to direct the Gewandhaus concerts and choral society for an annual term of six months, and the Thomasschule, all for a yearly salary of 1000 thalers. Meanwhile, a proposal arrived from Munich offering the directorship of the Opera for a salary of 2000 florins. 207 To Schleinitz, Felix inquired if his acceptance of the Gewandhaus post would impel the resignation of another, and in early February, citing his principle not to write publicly about music, he declined an invitation from Breitkopf & Härtel to assume the editorship of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung . 208 But the prospect of an Umzug was alluring. From Leipzig Henriette Voigt forwarded scores of Ludwig Schunke, a talented young composer and pianist, who had died at age twenty-four, and also Schumann’s Carnaval , which gave Felix great pleasure. 209 But in reply to Schumann’s invitation to serve as a Düsseldorf correspondent for his journal, Felix again declined.
By April Leipzig negotiations were in final stages. Determining his acceptance would not jeopardize his predecessor, the choral director August Pohlenz, Felix agreed to direct the Gewandhaus concerts for a salary of 600 thalers (eventually raised to 1000) and an annual six-month leave. On May 1 he requested the termination of his Düsseldorf contract 210 and on June 13 formally accepted the new position, though only for the next concert season. 211 Thus began Felix’s twelve-year association with Leipzig.
Before leaving Düsseldorf, Felix directed the seventeenth Lower Rhine Music Festival in Cologne (June 7–8). He was pleased at his selection over Ferdinand Ries, who had led the event seven times since 1825; after the 1833 festival Felix had quipped the two were like a pope and anti-pope. 212 Breaking with Ries’s precedent, Felix elected not to present his own works; he also realized his ambition to perform Handel’s Solomon without modern wind parts. To that end, Felix fashioned a new organ part, after consulting with Sir George Smart about Handel’s use of the organ as a continuo instrument. The performance was billed as an authentic recreation of Handel’s performance practice. The program included Beethoven’s Consecration of the House Overture and Eighth Symphony, Weber’s Euryanthe Overture, a march and hymn for Charles X sent by Cherubini, and, finally, Reichardt’s Morgengesang on a text by Milton, fulfilling the vow Felix had made in 1833 (see p. 292). The ensemble comprised musical amateurs from neighboring communities, who assembled to form a chorus of 427 and orchestra of 179. 213 Just how capably Felix presided over this army of musicians is evident from an account by Julius Benedict, who attended rehearsals of Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony and other works: “nobody certainly ever knew better how to communicate—as if by an electric fluid—his own conception of a work, to a large body of performers. It was highly interesting, on this occasion, to contemplate the anxious attention manifested by a body of more than five hundred singers and performers; watching every glance of Mendelssohn’s eye, and following, like obedient spirits, the magic wand of this musical Prospero …. Need I add, that he was able to detect at once, even among a phalanx of performers, the slightest error either of note or accent.” 214 In appreciation of Felix’s efforts, the organizing committee sent him thirty-two folio volumes of Samuel Arnold’s Handel edition (1787–1797), 215 an acquisition Felix prominently displayed in his study, as had Beethoven toward the end of his life.
Among the altos in the chorus was Fanny, who attended the festival with her husband, sister, and parents, the last time the family enjoyed together a public performance by Felix. If Fanny was in awe of Felix, Rebecka struggled to convey the monumentality of the event and observed it was like a Swiss glacier that could be comprehended only if seen. 216 In Düsseldorf the Mendelssohns spent a few peaceful days before the Hensels departed for Paris, where Wilhelm lectured and met Horace Vernet and Gérard. The Hensels also saw Meyerbeer, who recorded privately some unflattering impressions: Wilhelm was an idiot of a husband, and Fanny indescribably plain. 217 Meanwhile, in Düsseldorf, where Felix played parts of Paulus for Abraham, Lea suffered recurring tachycardia. Felix now divided time between his rehearsals and tending to his parents. Sometime in June or July he encountered the publisher Heinrich Brockhaus, en route to Belgium, who confided to his diary, “Felix Mendelssohn has now gradually become a man; he pleased me, and I hope to hear from him in Leipzig much that is good and beautiful.” 218 Felix gave his final concert on July 2, on which he performed Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, his own Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage , a capriccio, and his arrangement of Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum . Then, after accompanying Abraham on a business trip to Cologne, Felix tied up his affairs and departed for Berlin with his parents on July 25, 1835. His last act was to inscribe for his successor, Julius Rietz, a haunting duet in B minor for piano and cello, 219 an open-ended offering that broke off inconclusively with a half-cadence. Though Felix had dissolved his first position, his association with Düsseldorf was not yet concluded.
Chapter 10
1835–1837
The Apostle’s Voice
Res severa est verum gaudium . (True joy is a serious matter.)
—Seneca, Epistolae I, 23
Escorting his parents to Berlin, Felix issued guarded bulletins about Lea to his siblings. Hardly were Lea, Abraham, and Felix relaxing on the evening of August 1, 1835, in the familiar comfort of Leipzigerstrasse No. 3, before an uprising erupted against the government. When the authorities forbade an unruly crowd to celebrate the king’s birthday by firing rockets, one hundred and fifty “young ruffians” provoked the military and vandalized property on August 3 and 4 near Unter den Linden. Felix watched as protests broke out as the military killed innocent bystanders. 1 This disturbing scene turned his mind toward fleeing the “dreadful dump” (abscheulicher Nest ). But the “model sick-nurse” stayed through most of the month, “preserved” Lea like an Egyptian mummy in the Berlin Museum, 2 and composed pieces well removed from the social unrest: a festive Lied ohne Worte in E ♭ (published posthumously as Op. 85 No. 3), and a pensive setting of Eichendorff’s poem Das Waldschloss , in which the sirenlike Lied of a Waldfrau perched on a rocky cliff seduces a young hu
nter.
On August 30 Felix arrived in Leipzig, a small city with a population nearing 45,000. He stayed for a few days with Hauser before securing quarters beyond the city ramparts in Reichels Garten, with a view of the Thomasmühle and Thomaskirche. On August 31 he heard the Gewandhaus orchestra rehearsing his Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt and at once recognized the ensemble’s decided superiority over the Düsseldorf orchestra. At the same rehearsal Henriette Voigt introduced him to a moody, retiring musician. This was Robert Schumann, who later recalled the meeting: “I told him I knew all of his compositions well; he responded with something quite modest. The first impression was of an unforgettable man.” 3
For the next two weeks Felix settled into his residence, attended Bach performances at the Thomaskirche, and developed a new network of friends and colleagues. Schumann and Felix enjoyed frequent meetings, 4 as did Clara Wieck. On September 13 Felix played for her sixteenth birthday a Bach fugue and mimicked the styles of Liszt and Chopin; three days later he gave her the Capriccio in F# minor, Op. 5. 5 Earlier on Clara’s birthday the Stadtrat K. W. A. Porsche and flutist Carl Grenser had offered Felix a hearty welcome to the Gewandhaus; after leading his first rehearsal, he had pronounced his satisfaction with the orchestra. 6
From the previous director, C. A. Pohlenz, a vocal pedagogue who had also served as Thomaskantor, Felix inherited an honorable institution that had already celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. On November 25, 1781, J. A. Hiller had overseen the first concert in a new hall built within the Gewandhaus (Clothiers’ Hall) on Universitätsstrasse. Seating an audience of about five hundred, the hall became the site of an annual series of twenty concerts that ran from early October, just after Michaelmas, to Easter, typically on Thursday evenings. (Supplementing the subscription series were extra concerts of visiting virtuosi, and benefit concerts for the ensemble’s pension fund.) Hiller’s orchestra comprised about thirty musicians: twelve violins, three violas, four celli and contrabass, double winds (without clarinets), double brass (without trombones), and timpani. 7 They performed in an acoustically resonant hall ornamented by ceiling frescos symbolizing the ousting of old music by new. Figures from Greek mythology appeared next to a “genius” holding a loose leaf with the name of Bach. A contemplative inscription above the organ case read Res severa est verum gaudium (“True joy is a serious matter”), from an epistle of the Roman Seneca. In half a century the ensemble had frequently reaffirmed this sobering asseveration, as in 1789, when Mozart performed a mammoth program featuring two each of his symphonies and piano concerti.
More recently, Paganini had played in 1829 to a sold-out audience that willingly paid three times the normal ticket price. Two years later, after hearing Chopin’s Variations on Là ci darem la mano , Robert Schumann wrote his memorable review for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in which he advised, “Hats off, gentlemen, a genius.” The first movement of Schumann’s early Symphony in G minor, reverberant with Beethoven’s Eroica , received a reading at a concert of Clara Wieck in 1833, but Schumann remained in the shadow of Felix, whose fame had preceded him to Leipzig. Thus, three of Felix’s overtures (Opp. 21, 26, and 27) had already echoed in the Gewandhaus. 8
By 1831, the orchestral personnel had expanded to thirty-nine: sixteen violins, four violas, three celli, three contrabass, double winds (with clarinets), double brass (without trombones), and timpani. 9 In accepting his new post, Felix insisted upon a fundamental change: henceforth, he would direct all rehearsals and concerts with a baton, in contrast to the earlier division of labor between Pohlenz, who had overseen the choral music, and the concertmaster H. A. Matthäi, who had supervised the instrumental repertory. 10 There were some initial misgivings about the reform; in an otherwise enthusiastic review of the inaugural concert, Schumann quibbled, “I for my part was disturbed in the overture as in the symphony by the conductor’s baton. I agreed with Florestan, who claimed that the orchestra in a symphony should stand like a republic which recognizes no sovereign.” 11 But the improved results easily overcame any resistance to the new relationship between orchestra and director.
By late September 1835 preparations for the new season had begun in earnest, though pleasant distractions were a visit by Fanny and Wilhelm (September 22–26), 12 and the unexpected arrival of Chopin, who spent a few hours in Leipzig on September 27, en route to visit his parents in Karlsbad. Felix, then engaged with Paulus , played through the new work for his friend, who inserted etudes from his Op. 10 between the two parts of the oratorio. Chopin also offered a new “Notturno,” possibly the Andante spianato (Op. 22, 1834), with which Felix was quite taken. The scene must have been remarkable—Felix’s historicist oratorio, synthesizing in modern dress Bachian and Handelian strains, juxtaposed with Chopin’s virtuoso studies that explored the very frontiers of modern piano technique. For Felix, the meeting was like a conversation between a Cherokee and a Kaffir, though he did not reveal who played which role. 13 But the weight of history prevailed that day: midway through their meeting Felix’s reward for directing the Cologne Lower Rhine Music Festival arrived—the Arnold edition of Handel’s collected works. Its sturdy volumes, including the imposing array of Handel’s oratorios, served as a daily reminder for Felix to complete his most ambitious compositional undertaking to date.
At the beginning of October, just in time for the new season, Moscheles arrived in Leipzig. To his wife he reported, “[Felix] is idolized here, and lives on the most friendly terms with many musicians and notabilities, although he is intimate with but few, and reserved towards many.” 14 With Schumann, Moscheles attended Felix’s Gewandhaus debut on October 4, which featured his Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt and Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony. (Between them were three compositions featuring soloists: a scene and aria Weber had composed for Cherubini’s Lodoïska , Spohr’s Violin Concerto No. 11, and the introduction to Cherubini’s new opera Ali-Baba .) The event inspired a fanciful Schwärmbrief from Schumann, who reviewed the concert in his journal. Listening to Meeresstille , he had visions of Venice from the sea at dawn, then (as if recalling the classical allusions in Goethe’s poems) of a seductive daughter of Nereus (a marine divinity in Roman mythology), and finally, responding directly to Felix’s music, perceived that “from the farthest horizon there came a tintinnabulation as though the little waves were speaking to one another in a dream.” 15 Clara Wieck recorded in her diary a more straightforward assessment; Felix’s overture, she observed, was “performed with a precision and refinement to which we have not been accustomed.” 16
For another week Moscheles and Felix regaled each other with music. Moscheles read his friend’s new compositions, including Paulus and Lieder, such as the recently composed Heine setting, Auf Flügeln des Gesanges (Op. 34 No. 2). There was daily music making with a circle of musicians, among them Clara Wieck, Schumann, Hauser, the amateur tenor Konrad Schleinitz, and Henriette Voigt, who commissioned Theodor Hildebrandt to execute a formal portrait of Felix, 17 later used as a frontispiece for the first edition of Paulus . On October 6 the Wiecks hosted a reading of J. S. Bach’s Triple Concerto in D minor (BWV 1063) from a manuscript in Hauser’s possession, with Clara, Moscheles, and the young pianist Louis Rakemann taking the solo parts, while Felix condensed the orchestra at a fourth piano. 18 To support Moscheles’s Extraconcert on October 9, Felix directed the Hebrides Overture and participated in his friend’s piano duet, Hommage à Handel , about to be published by Kistner. At the second subscription concert (October 11), Moscheles reciprocated by performing his own Concerto in G minor, and encored his duet with Felix. In the audience that evening were the Dirichlets, returning from a vacation in Belgium. On the morning of October 13 they departed with Felix and Moscheles for Berlin.
After a sixteen-hour journey, they arrived late at night to a darkened house. The two pianists were unexpected, so the next morning Lea and Abraham awoke to a joyful reunion. Fanny joined Felix and Moscheles in performing for a nearly blind Abraham. At his request, Felix rendered at the pia
no the slow movement of Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 76 No. 5. Felix’s expressive playing of the extraordinary Largo in F# major, marked Cantabile e mesto , brought the old man to tears. 19 With Moscheles Felix read Mozart’s duet Sonata in D (K. 448) as Abraham delightedly mistook the playing of the one for the other. On their last day together (October 15), the two pianists collaborated on an improvisation, into which Felix cleverly worked horn calls announcing the departure of Moscheles’s coach. Moscheles left for Hamburg, and Felix, promising to return at Christmas, departed early the next morning for Leipzig. Abraham’s parting words were, “Well, humanly speaking, we may hope to be spared till then.” He had embraced his son for the last time. 20
Resuming a frenetic schedule, Felix now led four subscription concerts in as many weeks (October 22 and 29, November 5 and 12), and two benefit concerts of Clara Wieck, and the pianist J. P. Pixis and his foster daughter, the contralto Francilla Pixis (November 9 and 16). Among the highlights were Felix’s debut on October 29 as piano soloist in his Op. 25, and on November 9 the premiere of Clara’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7, a work with a somewhat unusual gestation. In 1833 the fourteen-year-old had composed a one-movement Concertsatz , orchestrated by Schumann. Recasting it as a finale, she expanded the work to produce a full-fledged concerto in three connected movements, like Felix’s Op. 25. The same concert also featured Felix’s Capriccio brillant , which she played “like a devil,” 21 and the J. S. Bach triple Concerto in D minor, with Clara, Felix, and Louis Rakemann as soloists—remarkably enough, the very first performance of Bach in the Gewandhaus. 22
Mendelssohn: A Life in Music Page 43
