Mendelssohn: A Life in Music

by Todd, R. Larry

  In the main, Felix simply added a bass line and modest chordal accompaniment, and thereby modernized Bach’s Baroque masterpieces by extracting from the violin part its implied harmonic underpinnings. But in the magisterial Chaconne variations, Felix took the process somewhat farther. J. Michael Cooper has shown that whereas Bach’s conception grouped several variations in pairs, Felix’s conceptualization reinforced a broader division of the work into three movements (D minor, D major, and D minor), with Bach’s arpeggiated variations near the end of the first and third sections, performed without the crutch of the keyboard, serving as virtuoso cadenzas. The effect was to transform a previously inaccessible solo violin work into a Konzertstück for violin and accompaniment, 7 a genre music-loving Leipzigers fully appreciated. In this way Felix rendered a Baroque masterpiece meaningful to his contemporaries. His arrangement, published in 1847, triggered a rash of transcriptions of the Chaconne for the next hundred years (including examples by Schumann, Brahms, Busoni, and the American conductor Leopold Stokowski 8 ) and gave renewed impetus to the nineteenth-century Bach Revival.

  Curiously, Felix’s arrangement appeared first not in Germany but in England, where Ewer & Co. brought it out only months before the composer’s death. The manager of this firm was Edward Buxton, a London wool merchant of German descent, who in 1840 began to vie with Novello for the English rights to Felix’s music. Several issues had strained Felix’s relationship with J. Alfred Novello and led to a final rupture in 1841, when Alfred organized an English performance of the Lobgesang Symphony, despite Felix’s desire to withhold the work for revision. 9 First, Alfred had tried to advance the career of his sister, Clara, by urging Felix to dedicate to her his setting of Psalm 42. Then, in 1838, Alfred pressed the internationally acclaimed composer of St. Paul to enter a choral competition in Dublin. And finally, in February 1840 the publisher declined the Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 49, for he feared “such a work would command a very small sale amongst our ignorant public.” 10 In Alfred’s defense, he was not the only publisher unconvinced by the trio. Breitkopf & Härtel’s Parisian agent, Heinrich Probst, encountered difficulty securing a French publisher and reported, “Mendelssohn is not yet moving here. Perhaps he will do better in the future. He is too learned to be popular.” 11 Still, the French firm of Simon Richault paid 200 francs for the Trio, and Buxton readily bought the English rights for 10 guineas. 12

  In the middle of the concert season Felix pondered several invitations to direct music festivals that year. The first was the brainchild of John Thomson, the Scottish composer Felix had befriended in 1829 and, ten years later, recommended for a professorship of music at the University of Edinburgh. From his new post Thomson aspired to mount oratorios of Handel, Haydn, and Mendelssohn. But the plan foundered when Felix urged instead a performance of the St. Matthew Passion—not possible in Presbyterian Edinburgh, Thomson explained, for “having Christ as one of the dramatic personae would be a fatal objection to its performance in this country.” 13 And so Felix declined the invitation and accepted engagements to direct Paulus in Weimar (May), the North German Musical Festival in Schwerin (July), and the Birmingham Musical Festival (September). In addition, he began a composition for a Leipzig festival in June commemorating the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg’s invention of movable type; by February the work was still not advanced enough to determine whether it would be “a kind of smaller oratorio or larger psalm.” 14

  Another project dear to Felix’s heart slowly coalesced when the Leipzig publisher Brockhaus inquired why there was no reliable modern edition of Moses Mendelssohn’s writings. In February, Felix wrote to Joseph Mendelssohn and set in motion a train of events that ultimately produced a new Gesamtausgabe , edited by Joseph’s son Benjamin, with a biographical sketch of the philosopher by Felix’s uncle. 15 Joseph’s literary interests also extended to a volume published that year about Dante and his time, on which Felix labored, translating into German sonnets by Boccaccio and other trecento poets. But according to Hiller, Felix’s nagging self-criticism delayed the timely completion of his work, and Joseph, with “an uncle’s want of consideration,” availed himself of other versions. 16

  The resounding acclaim for St. Paul encouraged Felix’s search for a new oratorio libretto, even though discussions with Klingemann and Schubring in 1837 and 1838 had failed to produce a viable option for Elijah . Other admirers of the composer had begun to volunteer their services. Thus, from Moscow the Lutheran pastor Karl Sederholm sent in November 1838 a collection of texts from Milton, Metastasio, and the Roman Breviary for a large church piece that “would envelop all the principal moments of Christendom.” 17 Nothing came of this unsolicited contribution, though its striving for monumentality seems to have intrigued Felix: by the summer of 1839 he was discussing with Karl Gollmick an oratorio provisionally titled “Earth, Heaven and Hell” (Erde, Himmel und Hölle ), to concern the “three highest principles of moral existence.” 18 At some point Felix took up the concept with Chorley, who by November 1839 had devised a new proposal to concretize the vague “floating vision of Earth, Hell, and Paradise” 19 —the chiasmic Lucan parable of Dives and Lazarus. But Felix found Dives only “very rich” and Lazarus “very poor”; Chorley’s scenarium failed to explain why one ended up in Hell, while the other received comfort in Abraham’s bosom. 20 Felix now turned to Schubring, who advised him to consult the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which contained a “really poetic depiction of Christ’s descent into Hell” and might provide a unifying element for the oratorio. 21 Felix even committed himself to reading the gospel in Greek but then became distracted by the thought of writing an oratorio about John the Baptist. Possibly, this new subject was a response to the commission for the Gutenberg Festival, for its first day, June 24, was not only the name day of the printer but also the Feast of John the Baptist, the traditional initiation day for printers’ apprentices. 22 Lack of time dissuaded Felix from this effort, and instead he developed sketches he had made in 1838 and 1839 for a symphony in B ♭ major. In short, his oratorio needs found a partial outlet in what became the Lobgesang Symphony.

  I

  Amid Felix’s oratorio ruminations, the 1839–1840 season came to a tumultuous climax in March, when Franz Liszt made his Gewandhaus debut (March 17–24 and 30–31). Initially, there were no signs of the sensational Lisztmanie that would sweep over staid Berliners late in 1841, when swooning female admirers fought over his cigar butts and locks of hair. Indeed, the first Leipzig concert nearly caused a fiasco. 23 The German tour began auspiciously enough in Dresden, where on March 16 Liszt dazzled a capacity audience, including members of the Saxon court, with transcriptions of Schubert Lieder and fantasy-like paraphrases of Meyerbeer and Donizetti. Present that evening was Robert Schumann, who covered the event for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik and found himself overwhelmed by sensations ranging from tenderness to madness. 24 The next day, Schumann accompanied the virtuoso on a train to Leipzig and witnessed with Felix an extraordinary chain of events. Owing to a scheduling miscue, Liszt’s first engagement with the Gewandhaus orchestra had to be rearranged at the last minute as a solo concert, but what truly enraged music-loving Leipzigers were the actions of his concert manager, Hermann Cohen (“Puzzi”), who ignored Gewandhaus protocols by hiking the ticket prices, adding a surcharge for reserved seating, and disallowing complimentary passes. When the elegantly dressed Liszt strode onto the stage “as lithe and slender as a tiger-cat,” and with flowing, long locks, he was booed. Felix made a telling aside to Hiller, “There’s a novel apparition, the virtuoso of the nineteenth century.” 25

  Unlike most concert pianists of the time, Liszt was accustomed to presenting solo recitals, unassisted by an orchestra or other artists; but his choice of repertoire on the evening of March 17 failed to win over the audience. Although half the audience stood on their chairs to witness Liszt’s electrifying rendition of Schubert’s Erlkönig , in the same hall where Felix had performed Beethoven’s nine symphonies Liszt now dared to offer a
transcription of the last two movements of the Pastoral Symphony, the pictorial thunder storm and shepherd’s song of thanksgiving. The Leipzig audience, familiar with the genuine article, found the striving toward orchestral effects comparatively pale (Liszt’s assertion, that the modern piano could successfully reproduce orchestral effects, failed to convince Felix, who reacted, “Well if I could only hear the first eight bars of Mozart’s G minor Symphony, with that delicate figure in the [violas], rendered on the piano as it sounds in the orchestra,—I would believe it”). 26 The next day Liszt fell ill with a fever and canceled his second concert. Schumann evidently believed the illness was a “diplomatic” malady; 27 still, he joined Felix and Hiller in tending to the artist in his sick room. Of the three, Felix most impressed Liszt; writing to his mistress Marie d’Agoult, he praised Felix’s drawings and violin and viola playing, and noted that he read Homer in the Greek and spoke four or five languages fluently. 28

  Though comfortable conversing in German, Liszt insisted on using French, so that Felix complained that social intercourse with him was like sitting in the middle of Paris. 29 Schumann found Liszt’s bearing overly aristocratic—the middle-class culture of Leipzig was apparently not to the liking of the artist, who complained about the lack of toilets and nobility. 30 Sensing a need to heal a growing rift, Felix, Hiller, and Schumann arranged a series of private musicales, from which the general public was excluded. At one musical matinée given by Felix, Liszt appeared in Hungarian uniform and played a series of pyrotechnical variations on a Hungarian folk melody. Then, insisting his host reciprocate, Liszt watched incredulously as Felix replicated the Hungarian melody, executed one variation after another, and managed to imitate Liszt’s “movements and raptures” without offending him. 31 The culmination of Liszt’s visit was a grand soirée at the Gewandhaus on March 23 for 250 guests, which Felix organized in two days, complete with an orchestra, 32 chorus, and three English grand pianos. Between mulled wine and crêpes, Felix directed the Schubert “Great” Symphony, Psalm 42, Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt , and choruses from Paulus . Then, Felix, Liszt, and Hiller performed the Bach Triple Concerto in D minor (the parts arrived from Dresden at the beginning of the concert), and Liszt concluded with some solo numbers. 33

  Felix’s goodwill facilitated Liszt’s successful return to the public stage. On March 24 he gave his second public concert, which featured Felix’s favorite Konzertstück of Carl Maria von Weber, and Liszt’s fantasy on Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots and transcriptions of Schubert’s Ständchen , Ave Maria , and Erlkönig . A reviewer in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung marveled at Liszt’s fast tempi, precision, and monstrous technique, and Schumann found the Weber the “crown” of Liszt’s accomplishments. 34 But the reviewer also noted Liszt’s habit of introducing novelties into Weber’s score, including doublings to render relatively easy passages more difficult, and a superabundance of ornaments to give the work a more brilliant veneer. If, the critic admitted, these changes accorded with the spirit of the original, there was nevertheless the danger that younger pianists would attempt similar modifications, with more pernicious results. No doubt Felix found Liszt’s willful tampering a violation of the integrity of Weber’s score and expressed further reservations about Liszt’s compositional abilities. In his colorful fantasies and transcriptions, all based on other composers’ works, Felix detected a lack of original ideas. Liszt’s performance was “as unpremeditated, as wild and impetuous, as you would expect of a genius, but then I miss those genuinely original ideas [that] I naturally expect from a genius.” 35

  On March 30 Liszt concluded his Leipzig tour with a benefit concert for the orchestral pension fund. Seeking to acknowledge the hospitality of Felix, Hiller, and Schumann, he featured works by the three, including Felix’s Piano Concerto No. 2, some etudes by Hiller, and Schumann’s Carnaval . But the performance of the concerto, which Liszt had learned only a few days before, was technically imperfect. Still, Felix admired Liszt’s standing as a pianist without peer and his musical feeling that found “its way to the very tips of his fingers.” 36 The two would meet again in 1841 in Berlin.

  II

  Recovering from the Lisztian tumult, Felix returned to the sobering world of German oratorio. On April 2 came the premiere of Die Zerstörung Jerusalems , about the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonians. Hiller had struggled to create the work, and Felix was heavily involved with it, which remained popular with German choral societies for a few decades. A few months before the premiere, on Christmas Eve 1839, he surprised Hiller with a cleanly written revision of the libretto. The music was not far removed from the Handelian choruses of Paulus , though Hiller preferred to view his score as anticipating Elijah . 37

  On April 9, 1840, Felix entered in his Fremdenliste a visit by a Marx of Berlin, almost certainly Adolf Bernhard Marx, at the time also laboring over an oratorio. Undeterred by his failed earlier collaboration with Felix (see p. 267), Marx had pressed on and finished Mose in 1839 (in 1853, Joachim Raff, impressed by the attempt to bridge the gulf between oratorio and opera, described Mose as a “music drama in evening dress”). 38 Now Marx turned to Felix for assistance in promoting his magnum opus . According to Marx’s widow, Therese, after playing through the work Felix curtly announced he could do nothing for it, whereupon Marx closed the score and returned to Berlin. A few days later, from a bridge in the Tiergarten he threw Felix’s letters into the water and thus severed the final bond of friendship. 39 Embittered, Marx now became an implacable foe of Felix. Instead of a triumphant Leipzig performance, he settled for a premiere in Breslau in 1841, while the musical press debated the merits of the oratorio. 40 At mid-century, Liszt revived it in Weimar, but it failed to enter the repertory.

  After the end of the concert season Felix celebrated Easter in Berlin with Lea, Rebecka, and Paul. Traveling by carriage with Carl, Marie, and Cécile, now pregnant with their third child, Felix spent the night in Potsdam and then on April 10 used the new train service to Berlin, which brought his family nearly to the front door of Leipzigerstrasse No. 3. 41 Clara Wieck and Robert Schumann were then in Berlin (in June Schumann would bring a slander suit against her father) and enjoyed intimate musical parties with Felix. 42 He also encountered the French composer Adolphe Adam, returning from St. Petersburg to Paris and about to create his most popular work, the ballet Giselle . 43 With Cécile and the children safely resettled in Leipzig, Felix proceeded to Weimar, where, after three rehearsals, he directed Paulus on May 26. The resources were considerably smaller than those of the grand music festivals over which Felix had presided. The orchestra consisted of only sixty musicians; the chorus, one hundred and forty-five. Still, the performance was a success, and in the town of Goethe, Schiller, and Hummel, Felix was treated like a dignitary, escorted everywhere by doting cicerones. 44

  Two civic projects now underscored Felix’s role as the arbiter of Leipzig musical culture. In February 1839 the Oberhofgerichtsrat Dr. Heinrich Blümner, a Gewandhaus director, had died, bequeathing to the Saxon king 20,000 thalers to support the establishment of an institute for art or science. Felix began a determined campaign to win the funds for a new music conservatory. Writing on April 8, 1840 to the king’s Kreisdirektor, J. P. von Falkenstein, Felix outlined the proposed academy and made the case for Leipzig, where music had long been inextricably woven into the social fabric. 45 The Thomaskirche and its cherished Bachian traditions, the flourishing concert life at the Gewandhaus, and the established university were prominent symbols of a municipal musical culture that had “struck its roots deep.” Lacking was a local institute to consolidate the artistic triangulation and to facilitate the musical training of students from the various classes. Felix sketched a vision of the school: it would admit local and foreign students supported by scholarships and offer a three-year course in the practical and theoretical sides of music. The faculty would include instructors in theory (thoroughbass, counterpoint, and fugue), singing, piano, violin, and cello. Students woul
d sing in a chorus and play in an orchestra. Overseeing the governance of the institution would be directors including the Leipzig mayor and the royal Kreisdirektor. 46

  A more immediate demonstration of Felix’s civic-mindedness came in June, when he participated in the three-day Gutenberg Festival. Many German cities held celebrations, but those in Leipzig struck an especially resonant chord: as epicenter of the German book trade, Leipzig had long been associated with publishing, and the anniversary thus offered a nostalgic occasion to celebrate the centuries-old trade and its guilds. The festival honored more than printing: the Gutenberg Bible was championed as the lamp that disseminated enlightenment, the means by which German realms had progressed from ignorant superstition to enlightened wisdom. Gutenberg’s technological advance was linked to Luther and the spread of the Reformation; as it happened, the second day of the festival, June 25, coincided with the commemoration of the Augsburg Confession, one of the signal events in the Protestant calendar.