Mendelssohn: A Life in Music

by Todd, R. Larry

  From a musical point of view, Op. 51 owes much to Handel, especially Joshua , which Felix had performed at the Lower Rhine Festival in Cologne in 1838, and Israel in Egypt . Handel’s word painting for the turning back of the Jordan in the eighth number of Joshua (“In wat’ry heaps affrighted Jordan stood, and backward to the fountain roll’d his flood”) was not lost upon Felix, who devised similar watery imagery for the third verse of the psalm, “The sea looked and fled; Jordan turned back” ( ex. 11.14 ). The reliance upon eight-part chorus (there are no soloists in Op. 51), too, suggests the grand double choruses of Israel in Egypt . But in conception and design, from the exordium-like opening to the culminating fugue on a celebratory verse added by Felix (“Hallelujah! Sing to the Lord in eternity”), the composition is a product of nineteenth-century sensibilities and aesthetics. The eight verses of the psalm fit into four connected movements, according to this scheme:

  Ex. 11.14 : Mendelssohn, Psalm 114, Op. 51 (1839), No. 2

  1. Verses 1–2, Allegro con moto maestoso , G major

  2. Verses 3–4, Allegro moderato , G minor

  3. Verses 5–6, Grave , E ♭ major (a cappella chorus)

  4. Verses 7–8, Allegro maestoso e vivace , C major

  To round out the work Felix added a fifth movement in G major, which begins by recalling the music for the first two verses and continues with the fugue on the supplemental text. The result is a circular, organic design centered on the powerfully moving third movement, in which the hushed chorus asks, without orchestral support, “Why is it, O sea, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back?” The shattering answer, “Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,” comes in the radiant fourth movement and then is intensified in the extrapolated fugue. The musical design thus resembles a protosonata form, in which the fifth movement, restoring the key of G major, functions as recapitulation and coda. 132 But the liberties Felix took with the text came at a cost: a review in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung pondered why Felix had treated the culminating seventh and eighth verses as a mid- or turning point, instead of the natural conclusion (no intensification was possible, the reviewer noted, after the eighth verse), 133 and Schumann, who preferred Felix’s setting of Psalm 42, found that the second half of Psalm 114 reminded him of music his friend had already composed. 134

  From Horchheim the Mendelssohns retraced their itinerary via Frankfurt to Leipzig, where they arrived the evening of August 20, 1839. One week later they were hosting Fanny, Wilhelm, and Sebastian, who visited from Berlin en route to a yearlong Italian sojourn. 135 The happy reunion was cut short by Felix’s departure at the end of the month to direct the Brunswick (Braunschweig) Music Festival. During the first week of September, the citizens of the lower Saxon city and its ducal court spared little effort to honor Felix as an international celebrity. On the evening of his arrival, there was a torch-lit serenade outside his villa, and thousands jostled into the Aegydien Church (the “fragment of a large Gothic building, … sorely despoiled of much of its old ornaments by time or violence”) 136 to attend the rehearsals. We owe eyewitness reports of the gala concerts to the music critic of the Athenaeum , Henry Fothergill Chorley, an anonymous correspondent for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung , and Felix himself. 137 The orchestra, Chorley informs us, comprised “unequal materials,” members of the Hofkapelle and amateurs unused to rehearsing together. Despite the presence of the duke on a raised dais and the ban on applause during Felix’s Paulus , the festival was vaguely egalitarian and promoted the mingling of the classes, so that elegant ladies primmed for a ball sat with “gypsy-colored, hard-handed peasant women.”

  Brunswick was the home of the progressive W. R. Griepenkerl, playwright, contributor to Schumann’s music journal, and author of the recently published Das Musikfest, oder die Beethovener (The Music Festival, or the Beethovenists , 1838). In this novella , in which Felix directs a rehearsal of the Ninth Symphony, Griepenkerl celebrated Beethoven’s final symphony as capturing the temper of the time and reading Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” as a yearning for freedom. 138 Now, it seems, Griepenkerl’s liberal sentiments were put to the test at the Brunswick Festival, as art imitated art, and Felix presented two Beethoven Symphonies (Nos. 5 and 7) to heterogeneous audiences on the second and third concerts.

  The festival began on September 6 with a performance of Paulus , which inspired the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung correspondent to compare Felix to a priest led by the muses to the invisible realm of Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven. The more prosaic Chorley regretted the lack of an organ to buttress the choruses and found the soloists wanting in feeling, but the chorus (some 440 strong) clear and precise and impressive in its sibilating effects. The highpoint of the second concert (September 7) was Felix’s performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, after which some ladies showered Felix with a feu de joie of floral bouquets. The evening continued with a ball, culminating in a ceremonial apotheosis of the composer. On a stage draped in white, with columns to imitate a temple, a female geni placed a crown of laurels upon his head while an ensemble softly sang a chorus from Paulus . The final concert (September 8) offered Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and featured Felix as a soloist in his D-minor Piano Concerto and Serenade und Allegro giojoso . According to Chorley, Felix’s pianism lacked the “exquisite finesses ” of Moscheles, the “spiritual seductions of Chopin,” and the “brilliant extravagances of Liszt.” “And yet,” Chorley continued, “no one that ever heard Mendelssohn’s pianoforte playing could find it dry, could fail to be excited and fascinated by it, despite of its want of all the caprices and colorings of his contemporaries. Solidity, in which the organ-touch is given to the piano without the organ ponderosity; spirit … animating, but never intoxicating, the ear; expression, which, making every tone sink deep, required not the garnishing of trills and appoggiature, or the aid of changes of time,—were among its outward and salient characteristics.” 139

  VIII

  Basking in the triumph of the festival, Felix returned to Leipzig about a month before the opening of the new Gewandhaus season on October 6. There was little time for rest. After a protracted correspondence with Vienna, Felix withdrew his earlier agreement to conduct Paulus at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. His Viennese hosts had been unable or unwilling to reimburse his traveling expenses, and the issue had been bruited about in the Austrian press, much to Felix’s displeasure. 140 Instead he took up a new “hobby”—advocating for the working conditions of the Gewandhaus orchestral personnel. After “no end of letter-writing, soliciting, and importuning,” he managed to secure a salary raise for his musicians. “You see I am a regular small-beer Leipziger,” he wrote to Moscheles. “But really you would be touched if you could see and hear for yourself how my good fellows put heart and soul into their work, and strive to do their best.” 141 Felix was now deluged with visits from “foreigners,” including musicians, dilettantes, and nobility, so that on September 10 he began keeping a Fremdenliste , scrupulously maintained until the end of the concert season in April 1840 (by the beginning of 1840 he had recorded 116 names). 142 The closing months of 1839 brought the Bach enthusiast and conductor J. T. Mosewius from Breslau; the Danish nationalist composer J. P. E. Hartmann from Copenhagen; Chorley from London; Clara Wieck, now visiting from Berlin and engaged, against her father’s vehement opposition, to Schumann; Felix’s old friends Droysen, Bendemann, and Hübner; Meyerbeer’s brother Heinrich Beer; and Ferdinand Hiller, who arrived on December 6. During the stream of visitors, Cécile gave birth on October 2 to Marie Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and Felix began posting daily bulletins to Berlin about his daughter, whom he described as having dark hair in abundance and blue eyes. Near the end of October, Lea, Paul, and Albertine arrived from Berlin to attend the baptism.

  The new concerts featured the Leipzig debuts of the Belgian soprano Elisa Meerti and mezzo-soprano Sophie Schloss, who appeared to perform Italian operatic excerpts, chiefly cavatinas by Spontini, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Mercadante. Becaus
e full scores were not readily available, Felix had orchestral arrangements prepared from piano scores by a copyist, who cleverly introduced “bold orchestral effects” that required slight retouches by Felix. 143 Among the other soloists was the pianist Marie Pleyel (née Moke), erstwhile fiancée of Berlioz, who had severed the engagement in 1830, after he left for Italy, to marry Camille Pleyel. The noteworthy performances included the premiere on October 30 of Felix’s Verleih’ uns Frieden of 1831, which Breitkopf & Härtel had published in June 1839 as a supplement to the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung , a lithographed facsimile of an autograph Felix prepared on specially ruled paper. 144 According to Chorley in 1839 the Gewandhaus was “infinitely too small for the audience who crowded it, paying their sixteen groschen (two shillings) for entrance, with no vainglorious notions of exclusiveness … to trouble their brains, but from a sheer thorough-going love of the art, and a certainty that they should be gratified.” 145

  As 1839 drew to a close, Felix returned in earnest to the part-song and produced several new euphonious examples, among them Abendständchen , Op. 75 No. 2 and the drinking song Ersatz für Unbestand , published in the Deutscher Musenalmanach for 1839. 146 By year’s end he had finished his second volume for mixed chorus, Op. 48; the first volume for male voices, the Sechs Lieder Op. 50, followed one month later. In these settings, inspired by the open-air parties of Frankfurt and the Leipzig Liedertafel (twelve male friends who met regularly for music, conversation, and wine), Felix explored the cozy domain of the musical Biedermeier . Gracefully melodious and entertaining, the choral songs project again those attributes of moderation, contentment, and domesticity we have detected in other works from the early years of Felix’s marriage. Harmonically straightforward and unchallenging contrapuntally, 147 the music inevitably serves the texts, which offer escapist images of nature and convivial drinking songs. Among the latter is Op. 50 No. 5, Liebe und Wein (Love and Wine ), to be sung in an intoxicated tone. Hiller reports that for the amusement of the Liedertafel, the two friends composed the same text and offered their creations like a blind musical wine tasting to the Liedertafel. Only one member, Schleinitz, was able to distinguish correctly their authorship. 148

  Several of Felix’s part-songs (e.g., the marchlike Der Jäger Abschied [Hunters’ Farewell ], Op. 50 No. 2, to which he added optional brass parts) attained great popularity in nineteenth-century Germany and reveal his abiding appeal to the burgeoning middle-class culture of Leipzig. Indeed, some of the melodies were assimilated into folksong collections. But as the pendulum of the twentieth-century swung, these pleasant miniatures were dismissed as superficial utterances. Thus Philip Radcliffe found the choral songs “liable to cloy in too large quantities,” and Eric Werner detected “Old Boys Philistinism” in a part-song from Felix’s last year, Comitat , Op. 76 No. 4. 149 The former popularity had become a liability, and the music fell to an elitist argument. But Felix himself probably never viewed these pieces as anything more than a rapprochement with middle-brow culture; hence the “everyday,” formulaic harmonic progressions that announce the coming of spring in Op. 48 No. 1 (Frühlingsahnung [Presentiment of Spring ]) and its anticipated return at the conclusion of No. 6 (Herbstlied [Autumn Song ]). Similarly, the use of humor in Op. 50 Nos. 1 and 5 progresses nearly to pastiche, as if parodying the bourgeois mentality. The part-songs, however, are not altogether devoid of artistic merit and originality. Op. 48 shows signs of a cyclic design in its coordinated key relationships and subtle manipulation of spring imagery, from the gentle stirring in No. 1 (süsser Hauch ) to the forest rustling of No. 6 (Waldesrauschen ). 150 And the barcarolle-like Op. 50 No. 4, Wasserfahrt (Water Journey ), on a poem of Heine, successfully captures the seductive rhythms and veiled undertones of the piano Venetian Gondellieder ( ex. 11.15 ). Nevertheless, by 1839 Felix could convincingly play the contented bourgeois and produce music designed to appeal to middle-class sensibilities. But his accommodation to Biedermeier values and lapse into Behaglichkeit was only one side of a multifaceted, versatile genius.

  Ex. 11.15 : Mendelssohn, Wasserfahrt , Op. 50 No. 4 (1840)

  Chapter 12

  1840–1841

  Leipzig vs. Berlin

  Berlin—one of the sourest apples one can bite, and yet it must be bitten.

  —Felix to Klingemann, July 15, 1841 1

  The new decade began unpropitiously for Felix: debilitated by a severe cold, he arrived on a Portechaise at the Gewandhaus to direct the New Year’s Day concert. The winter season, among the most memorable of his tenure, was soon in full swing. For the next concert (January 9), he made a virtue of necessity when the featured violinist, Carl Stör from Weimar, disappeared after his first solo, leaving a gap in the second half. On the program were Beethoven’s first two Leonore Overtures; Felix now added the third and Fidelio Overtures—both unrehearsed, according to the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 2 —so that for the first time Leipzigers heard all four together. Felix’s choice of repertoire again underscored his effort to promote new music, including symphonies by Friedrich Schneider of Dessau, J. F. Kittl of Prague, and J. W. Kalliwoda of Donaueschingen, and a new overture by Julius Rietz. But an attempt to encore the Schubert “Great” Symphony on March 12 failed when a false fire alarm emptied the hall; Felix reprogrammed the symphony on the final concert of the season two weeks later.

  The concerts also featured works for soloists other than the customary singers, violinists, and pianists. A series of wind players, many drawn from the orchestra, took the stage to perform pieces featuring the flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, natural horn, and trombone. And on February 6, there was an unusual, late addition to the fifteenth concert: the cavatina “Casta diva” from Bellini’s Norma , rendered by Herr Toselli of Ferrara on a glass harmonica. This entertaining contraption, comprising “tuned” glasses that could be struck or rubbed, had appeared in the eighteenth century. In the 1760s, captivated by the glasses’ otherworldly resonance, Benjamin Franklin began tinkering with the instrument, which subsequently enjoyed a new vogue. In 1791, Mozart composed a quintet that employed the instrument (K. 617). Toselli’s instrument boasted several octaves of glass disks struck with a cork hammer. Their eerie high partials and silvery tones must have created a sensation among an audience accustomed to a coloratura soprano playing Bellini’s Druid priestess.

  Compensating for this unusual fare was a diet of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; as a soloist, Felix chose to appear with a classical work and on January 30 performed the Mozart Double Piano Concerto in E=, K. 365. Felix’s partner was Ferdinand Hiller, in Leipzig to finish his new oratorio, Die Zerstörung Jerusalems (The Destruction of Jerusalem ). As in the 1832 performance of the concerto with Moscheles in London, Felix produced two brilliant cadenzas for the outer movements, performed in the spirit of a “free double fantasy” extemporized on the spot. 3 But Felix took the time to notate his contributions, designed as two tautly unified miniature compositions that recalled, developed, and rewove the diverse themes of the concerto, 4 and thus harnessed the virtuoso display to buttress the artistic integrity of Mozart’s composition.

  In tandem with the orchestral concerts was the expanded series of six chamber-music concerts (January 25–March 7), again organized by Ferdinand David and benefiting from the participation of Felix, who accompanied David and played piano duets with Hiller. Formerly described as Quartettsoiréen , these performances were rebilled as Abendunterhaltungen (“evening conversations”). The repertory, chiefly “classical” violin sonatas, piano trios, and string quartets, drew heavily upon Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; representing contemporary music were works by Cherubini, Spohr, Onslow, Hiller, and Felix. The season stood out for several memorable events. The final concert introduced Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” String Quartet and culminated in two octets, Spohr’s Double Quartet in D minor and Felix’s own genial Octet, in which he took up one of the viola parts. Equally noteworthy was his effort to enrich the classical and modern repertory by presenting little-known music of J.
S. Bach. Thus, on February 29, 1840, Felix performed a work destined to become a staple of twentieth-century pianists, the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue , BWV 903. Felix managed to unravel its fugal complexities and achieve clarity of interpretation, and almost entranced a correspondent into imagining Felix had composed the work, among Bach’s most harmonically audacious and contrapuntally involved creations. 5

  A few weeks before, on February 8, Ferdinand David performed two solo violin works of Bach: the Prelude from the Partita in E major, and the formidable Ciaconna from the Partita in D minor, BWV 1006 and 1004. Both had been in print since 1802 but not yet entered the modern violinist’s repertory, on account of their uncompromising technical difficulties and the public’s lack of interest in Bach’s austere, contrapuntal music. The 1840 Gewandhaus performance changed the common perception: “… Herr Dr. Mendelssohn Bartholdy accompanied both works on the piano with a harmonic reduction freely executed in contrapuntal style. These Bach solo pieces were originally for violin alone, without a bass line or figured bass, …. To be sure, this [manner] suffices for artists, who are in a position to recognize and evaluate the harmonic progressions and artful design. But the public requires in addition an aid, a kind of commentary, to render the whole work more graphic and to facilitate its understanding.” 6