As if imitating the trajectory of Spohr’s symphony, Felix devoted the next two concerts (February 18 and 25) to the lighter fare of modern music, including a new symphony by Kalliwoda, virtuoso pieces by the violinists Molique and Lipiński, and operatic excerpts from Bellini, Donizetti, and Meyerbeer. Though Sophie Schloss’s rendition of an aria from Robert le diable , which had raised Felix’s ire in 1832, resonated with the Leipzig audience, he could only liken the shift in repertoire after the Beethoven concert to a precipitous descent from Adam to the populist writer Holtei. 109 A more serious attempt to champion contemporary music came on March 31, when Clara Schumann presented a benefit concert for the orchestral pension fund. On that evening Felix gave the premiere of Robert Schumann’s First Symphony (Spring ), Op. 38, catapulting the composer into the ranks of estimable modern symphonists. In an intense, four-day burst of creativity late in January 1841, Schumann had sketched the work, inspired by a poem by Adolf Böttger (in April, Felix would set the same poet’s verses in the tenderly melancholy song, Ich hör ein Vöglein 110 ). By early March Robert was sharing the full score with Felix, who offered suggestions before recommending its performance. Beginning with a brass fanfare and in B ♭ major, like the Lobgesang , Schumann’s symphony reflected Schubert’s epic “Great” Symphony, yet betrayed Schumann’s genius in several quirky features 111 —for example, its episodic, narrative approach to form, colorful orchestration, and thematic unpredictability.
The concert marked Robert and Clara’s professional debut together as husband and wife. Regrettably, their wedding on September 12, 1840, (the day after Felix’s departure for England) had not resolved tensions with Friedrich Wieck, and the lovers now awaited the judgment of a slander suit Robert instituted against his father-in-law. The concert was Felix’s way of supporting the couple and elevating Robert’s relatively low profile as a music journalist and creator of eccentric piano music. (Sadly enough, only a few months before, in November, Robert had shared with Clara in their diaries some anti-Semitic comments about Felix, whom Robert still regarded as a Jew. 112 ) In the days leading up to March 31 Felix hastily composed for Clara a piano duet, which the two performed on the concert. It consisted of a “singing” Andante in the style of a Duett ohne Worte coupled to a brisk Allegro brillant in Felix’s trademark scherzo idiom, with a patter of staccato work and brilliant, darting figurations. 113 Felix thus revived for Clara the paradigms he had employed in the Rondo capriccioso for Delphine von Schauroth and the Duett ohne Worte for Cécile. But when, four years after his death, Breitkopf & Härtel published the piece as the Allegro brillant Op. 92, the firm omitted the Andante; not until 1994 were the two movements rejoined and the composition once again made whole. 114
The culmination of the concert season came on Palm Sunday 1841 (April 4), when Felix directed the St. Matthew Passion in the Thomaskirche with an amateur chorus. Since Bach’s premiere of his masterwork in the same church on Good Friday 1727, it had lain dormant in Leipzig; incredibly, Felix revealed to Paul, not a single note was known in the city, 115 despite the Berlin revival in 1829 and its ripple effect throughout Germany. To realize the performance Felix had to borrow parts from the Singakademie and the estate of Eduard Rietz. In place of piano, Felix employed two cellos and a double bass for the continuo, and he made other modifications as well, including reinstating four of the ten arias cut from the 1829 performance. 116 The receipts from the performance were dedicated to the Bach monument. Felix again stirred the German musical consciousness, but now it was the internationally acclaimed composer of St. Paul , not the twenty-year-old prodigy, who reclaimed for Leipzig Bach’s masterwork. Though Felix never conducted it again, the Passion became a traditional fixture for Good Friday services in the city.
V
Less than two weeks later Felix directed an encore performance of Paulus in Weimar. Half an hour before the concert (April 15), he was nonchalantly putting finishing touches on an orchestral piece to celebrate the Dresden visit of the painter Peter Cornelius. 117 The result was a festive march in D major, published posthumously as Op. 108. Of greater concern that day was the tenor soloist for the oratorio, who fell ill during the dress rehearsal. Regrettably, his replacement also became indisposed during the performance and struggled to complete Part 1; during the intermission, Felix hurriedly initiated a third singer into the tenor arias of Part 2 and managed to salvage the concert. 118
With the end of the concert season Felix resumed active composition. Concentrating on keyboard music, he finished during the spring and summer of 1841 the Lieder ohne Worte , Op. 53, three sets of piano variations (Opp. 54, 82, and 83; a fourth set, envisioned for orchestra, did not materialize), and one piano and one organ prelude. The fourth volume of piano Lieder included three older pieces: from 1835, No. 2 in E ♭ , composed for Clara Wieck; and, from 1839, No. 1 in A ♭ , for Sophy Horsley, and No. 3 in G minor. 119 To these three he added the final three Lieder in April and May, and sent the finished Heft to Simrock in June, with a dedication to Sophy, daughter of the glee composer and a gifted pianist. Just at that time her younger brother, Charles Edward Horsley, was in Leipzig to study piano and composition with Felix. Charles reports that the technically challenging No. 6, in A major, may have been in response to Sigismond Thalberg’s visit in February 1841, when the pianist presented a caprice on themes from Bellini’s Sonnambula . 120 Into this bravura display Thalberg had introduced clamorous chromatic octaves alternating between the hands; impressed by the device, Felix began imitating it on the piano in his study. Op. 53 No. 6 has a distinctive texture in which chords embellished by chromatic pitches are rapidly exchanged between the hands ( ex. 12.7 ), yielding piquant chromatic juxtapositions somewhat reminiscent of Thalberg’s virtuoso effect.
Ex. 12.7 : Mendelssohn, Lied ohne Worte in A major, Op. 53 No. 6 (1841)
Only one Lied, Op. 53 No. 5, appeared with a title, though extramusical ideas inspired at least two others, the third and fourth. The composing autograph of No. 3 bears the title Gondellied , but apart from the meter ( ) and telltale rhythms the piece has little in common with Felix’s other Venetian barcarolles. Instead of a dreamy Andante with a duet accompanied by lapping arpeggiations, we find an agitated Presto with the melody in three-part harmony supported by turbulent broken chords. The tranquil No. 4 was originally titled Abendlied 121 (Evening Song ), though Felix suppressed it too for the first edition. He did release the fifth as a Volkslied , conceived as a colorful imitation of Scottish folksong; the principal theme is not unlike that of the Scottish Symphony, completed early in 1842 ( ex. 12.8a ). Felix’s piano Lied seems to have inspired in turn the young Brahms, who in 1853 conjured up Scottish folksong in the finale of his first piano sonata, in a passage suspiciously similar to Op. 53 No. 5 ( ex. 12.8b ).
Though Brahms revealed to his colleague Albert Dietrich the textual source of the passage was Robert Burns’s “My Heart’s in the Highlands,” Felix remained reluctant to tie his piano Lieder publicly to specific poems. Still, the published and suppressed titles of Op. 53 suggest he conceived the pieces as abstractions of familiar categories of German romantic lyrical poetry, if not, as Schumann had imagined, songs with their texts simply removed. That is to say, in Op. 53 No. 4, Felix sought to abstract the musical essence of an Abendlied . As the Lieder ohne Worte grew in popularity, Felix seems to have stiffened his resolve not to allow poetic ideas to influence unduly the appreciation of the music. There was a practical reason for this aesthetic stand. By 1840 pirated editions of the Lieder were beginning to appear, forcing Simrock to take legal action. Moreover, in July 1841, not long after Felix finished his Op. 53, his friend, the attorney Konrad Schleinitz, brought a claim against Schuberth & Co. for reissuing some of the Lieder with texts freely added by Karl Christern, a minor Hamburg editor and composer. 122 But Schleinitz’s efforts proved a rear-guard action, for later nineteenth-century publishers did not hesitate to adorn the Lieder with vacuous titles, all in an effort to bolster sales.
Ex. 12.8a: Mendelsso
hn, Lied ohne Worte in A minor, Op. 53 No. 5 (Volkslied , 1841)
Ex. 12.8b: Brahms, Piano Sonata in C major, Op. 1, Finale (1853)
Felix’s crowning achievement in the summer of 1841 was the Variations sérieuses in D minor, Op. 54, finished on June 4, 1841, 123 and generally regarded as his masterpiece for piano. In March Pietro Mechetti had pressed him to participate in a new Beethoven Album, the proceeds from which were to support the raising of the famous monument in Bonn. Advertised in January 1842 as Dix morceau brillants , the album included contributions from nine other pianists: Chopin, Czerny, Döhler, Henselt, Kalkbrenner, Liszt, Moscheles, Taubert, and Thalberg. 124 Excepting Chopin’s soulful Prelude in C# minor, Op. 45, Felix’s variations were the most substantial and original contribution. By labeling them “serious,” he intended to distinguish his effort from the superficial variations of the virtuosi then in vogue. The theme, a brooding, chromatic creation, begins with two dissonant suspensions—emblems of an elevated, earnest style—and rising melodic leaps of the dissonant tritone (G#–D) and diminished fourth (C#–F; ex. 12.9 ). The solemnity and grandeur of the composition recall Beethoven’s epic thirty-two Variations in C minor; its grave affect, something of Beethoven’s Serioso String Quartet Op. 95.
Felix arranged his eighteen variations into crescendo-like waves of increasing dramatic tension. The first nine build in intensity through faster rhythmic values and the rigorous application of canon in the fourth. The tenth and eleventh variations mark a structural pause; the tenth, a fugato, forms a contrapuntal pendant to the fourth, while in the eleventh, the theme is transformed into a Schumannesque rêverie : an outline of the theme now appears against pianissimo syncopated chords. In succeeding variations, the theme descends from the soprano to the tenor register, first in a dramatic, martellato explosion (No. 12), then in a demonstration of the Thalbergian three-hand technique (No. 13), and finally in a contemplative, hymnlike variation in the major (No. 14; ex. 12.10 ). In No. 15, the theme is fractured and displaced among several registers ( ex. 12.11 ). The increasingly agitated Nos. 16 and 17 build to a climax in which the reconstituted theme returns in the soprano over a tremolo in the bass. The stretto-like No. 18 serves as a coda. Here the theme appears in unrelenting syncopations, interrupted, near the end, by a sweeping arpeggiated flourish. Then, a few quiet D-minor chords bring this work to its subdued close.
Ex. 12.9 : Mendelssohn, Variations sérieuses , Op. 54 (1841), Theme
Ex. 12.10 : Mendelssohn, Variations sérieuses , Op. 54 (1841), No. 14
The serious tone of Op. 54 informs a contemporaneous pencil drawing of Felix by J. H. Schramm, dated June 14, 1841, 125 which shows a somber, bearded composer only weeks before his departure to Berlin. Two lesser compositions from the period, the Prelude in E minor for piano and Prelude in C minor for organ, also project grave affects, but not so the keyboard Variations in E ♭ and B ♭ , Opp. 82 and 83. All four date from July or early August 1841 and were dispatched after Felix again received Hans Christian Andersen, who visited Leipzig from July 4 to 6. The piano prelude offers another application of Thalberg’s three-hand technique; Felix coupled the piece with a fugue from 1827 and published the two in the album Notre temps of 1842. The organ prelude fulfilled a request from the musical amateur Henry E. Dibdin of Edinburgh for a “long measure psalm tune.” 126 Instead, Felix obliged with a short, impromptu-like piece in a severely chromatic and disjunct style reminiscent of the Variations sérieuses . 127 In decided contrast are the two variation sets, published posthumously in 1850, which he described to Rebecka as “sentimental” and “graceful.” 128 Less ambitious than Op. 54, Opp. 82 and 83 comprise a theme with five and six variations, the last of which serve as extended codas. Brahms may have had in mind Op. 82 when, late in life, he composed the finale of the Clarinet Sonata in E=, Op. 120 No. 2 (1894). It has a “sentimental” theme, not unlike Op. 82, that emphasizes the dominant harmony through “weak,” “feminine” half cadences and five variations, the last of which is considerably expanded.
Ex. 12.11 : Mendelssohn, Variations sérieuses , Op. 54 (1841), No. 15
Before moving to Berlin Felix completed one other major work, the revision of Psalm 95, Op. 46. Since its premiere in 1839, his nagging self-doubts had hindered its publication. Although Kistner had already begun engraving the score, Felix withdrew the composition and set it aside for nearly two years. Only in August 1841 was he able to release it, together with an apologetic canon for Kistner on the text Pater, peccavi (“Father, I have sinned”). 129 The final form of the psalm comprised five movements, with a structural break between the fourth and fifth to reflect the division of text between the joyful call to worship (verses 1–7a) and sobering admonition to the faithful not to harden their hearts against the Lord (7b-11). Felix underscored the division by pairing two major and minor tonalities. The first four movements describe a cycle of keys centered on E=, while the fifth movement, linked to the fourth through an orchestral transition, introduces the dark coloration of G minor.
To lessen the severe emotional descent from the first to the second part of the psalm—for C. F. Becker, the “downward sinking of the whole” 130 —Felix took liberties with the order of the verses. The first movement begins with the reverent verses 6–7a (“O come, let us worship and bow down”), introduced by a tenor soloist to which the chorus responds. The second movement, a bright chorus energized by wind chords in dotted rhythms, employs the celebratory opening verses (“O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!”), but changes in texture to a somber canon for the third verse (“For the Lord is a great God,” ex. 12.12a ). The third movement, a lyrical duet for two sopranos, treats the fourth verse (“In His hand are the depths of the earth”) but also briefly cites the text of the sixth. And the fourth movement, a broad choral fugue for the fifth verse (“The sea is His, for He made it”), recalls the music of the opening chorus and the sixth and seventh verses, thus completing the first part.
Felix allotted the verses of the second part (7b–11) to a dark-hued finale in G minor. Divided violas doubled by bassoons introduce a plaintive melody ( ex. 12.12b ), sung by the tenor soloist, to which the sopranos and altos, and then the full chorus, reply. At the warning of the eighth verse, “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me” (a reference to Exodus 17:1–7), the music becomes increasingly agitated and falls into a dramatic recitative for the Lord’s oath, “Therefore in my anger I swore, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” The composition ends with hushed, pianissimo chords, a subdued musical effect that C. F. Becker compared to the music of the spheres.
Ex. 12.12a: Mendelssohn, Psalm 95, Op. 46 (1841), No. 2
Ex. 12.12b: Mendelssohn, Psalm 95, Op. 46 (1841), No. 5
VI
With no small apprehension Felix arrived with his family in Berlin at the end of July 1841. Under his direction during the previous six years, the Gewandhaus had developed into one of the premiere musical institutions of Europe. “With such a devoted orchestra,” the flutist Carl Grenser wrote on behalf of the orchestra, “you have won a victory for German music, and set a distinguished example for all Germany. The Fatherland will thank you!” 131 As composer, conductor, pianist, and organist, Felix had flourished and now, an internationally recognized figure with few peers, stood at the very forefront of his art. In Leipzig he had enjoyed more or less complete artistic freedom and had embraced the positive aspects of the dominant, middle-class musical culture. Now he was to give up not only the stability of his position at the Gewandhaus for the long desired reunion with his family but also for the uncertainty of Berlin and its court. The exchange would exact a significant price.
Chapter 13
1841–1842
From Kapellmeister to Generalmusikdirektor
… we are children no longer, but we have enjoyed what it really is to be so.
—Felix to his brother, Paul, December 22, 1842 1
Overshadowing the happiness of Felix’s homecoming was the frustrating uncertainty of his position at the court, the topic of a stream of letters from August and September 1841. To Ferdinand David, who directed the Gewandhaus in Felix’s absence: “You wish to hear news about the Berlin Conservatory; I do as well, … but there is none.” To Verkenius in Cologne: “all the causes which formerly made it impossible for me to begin … my career in Berlin … still subsist, just as they formerly did, and are likely, alas! to subsist to the end of time.” In a second, “hypochondriacal” letter to the same, Felix groused about the lack of professionalism in the royal orchestra, which he ascribed to Spontini’s vainglory (in July, Felix’s old nemesis had been convicted of lèse majesté and dismissed). To Klingemann Felix caviled that after six months he still did not know what the court expected of him, and to Rebecka, he eagerly awaited the opening of the Leipzig-Berlin railroad, so that he could invite her to Leipzig concerts and imagine no longer serving the monarch. 2 Somehow the wondrous new mode of travel, beginning to etch indelibly the German terrain, would provide a ready-made escape for his professional predicament.
Mendelssohn: A Life in Music Page 57
