The next day, Jenny and Felix collaborated in an extra concert for the orchestral pension fund. Before an audience of a thousand, the two appeared in alternation, with Felix performing his Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 25 and two Lieder ohne Worte , Op. 67 No. 1 in E ♭ and the “Frühlingslied ,” Op. 62 No. 6 in A major. Felix connected them with a masterly improvisation that modulated between the two distantly related keys, and somehow transformed the belllike B ♭ ’s of the first into the “feathery” arpeggiations of the second. 77 Jenny offered selections from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro , Weber’s Der Freischütz and Euryanthe , Felix’s Lieder, and again Swedish folksongs. That evening, grateful members of the orchestra serenaded her, and she asked Felix to acknowledge their hospitality. “Gentlemen,” he exclaimed from a balcony. “You think that the Kapellmeister Mendelssohn is speaking to you, but in that you are mistaken. Fräulein Jenny Lind speaks to you, and thanks you for the beautiful surprise that you have prepared for her. But now I change myself back again into the Leipzig Kapellmeister, and call upon you to wish long life to Fräulein Jenny Lind.” 78
When Jenny returned on December 6 to Berlin, Felix accompanied her as far as Dessau; an unpublished letter refers to an interrupted conversation there about Swedish customs and the Berlin court. 79 Most likely, Felix traveled to his grandfather’s birthplace to consult Schubring about Elijah (only a week later the composer was sending his friend a complete draft of the libretto 80 ). Having returned to Leipzig, Felix took up his baton to direct the ninth Gewandhaus concert, on December 11; he also participated in the tenth, one week later, when he directed with brisk tempi some ensembles from Mozart’s Così fan tutte . 81 But Felix continued to dwell on Jenny; in his letter of December 10 (using the formal Sie ), he had asked her to remember him, either in the billiards room, when children played piano duets, or when another composer approached her with songs. At Christmas, Felix exercised the third option, by sending her as a present a Liederheft . 82 Among its contents was the Schilflied (Song of the Reeds ) of 1842 to a text of Lenau, destined to appear in 1847 as Op. 71 No. 4. Though not composed for Jenny, the song concludes with a “sweet remembrance of you” (ein süsses Deingedenken , with the intimate Dein ), and thus, perhaps, alludes musically to their friendship. But another song, Op. 99 No. 5, composed on December 22 to a text of Geibel and included in the Liederheft , was considerably more suggestive. “When two hearts part,” it begins, “that once were in love, that is a great sorrow, for which there is no greater” ( ex. 15.13 ). And in his letter of December 23, which accompanied the songs, Felix concluded, “As far as I am concerned, you know that at every happy Festival and on every serious day, I think of you, and you have a share in them, whether you like it or no—But you wish it, I am sure, and you know from me that it is the same with me and never will be otherwise.” 83
Ex. 15.13 : Mendelssohn, “Wenn sich zwei Herzen scheiden,” Op. 99 No. 5 (1845)
IV
Writing to the Frankfurt senator and merchant Franz Bernus in October 1845, Felix revealed his grueling Leipzig schedule was taking its toll: “As soon … as I have won the right to live solely for my inward work and composing, only occasionally conducting and playing in public just as it may suit me, then I shall assuredly return to the Rhine, and probably … settle at Frankfurt.” 84 But in the meantime, Leipzigers rejoiced at his renewed commitment to their musical life. In addition to the Gewandhaus concerts, he participated fully in the concurrent Unterhaltungen , by performing his two piano trios, Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in A major, Op. 69, and a new piano quintet by Louis Spohr. The season brought the Leipzig premiere of Beethoven’s unfathomable String Quartet in C ♯ minor, Op. 131, encouraging Felix to explore Beethoven’s transcendent, then little understood, late style. Thus, at the Königstrasse residence on New Year’s Eve, Felix rendered the Piano Sonata in E major, Op. 109, in a private performance attended by the Schumanns (though Clara also performed, Robert was suffering from nervous exhaustion and depression, and “with his usual custom took no active part in the proceedings” 85 ). At the second, public Unterhaltung , Felix offered Beethoven’s final piano sonata, the Op. 111 in C minor. According to Otto Goldschmidt, the ineffable variations of the second movement “came out more clearly in their structure and beauty than I have ever heard before or since.” 86 The young journalist Franz Brendel, who in 1845 had assumed the editorship of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik after Robert Schumann sold the journal, gave Felix’s effort a mixed review. If his conception of the variations in the second-movement finale was compelling, Brendel found Felix’s touch in the first movement “too light and fleeting” to convey the “painful disunity” of the composition. 87 Brendel’s criticism, a rare, dissenting voice in a city that lionized the composer, marked the beginning of a divide in German music journalism that would widen considerably after the Revolution of 1848. For Brendel, Felix’s classical propensities (and his refined pianism) were increasingly incongruent with the political and artistic aspirations of a modern Germany.
The beginning of 1846 brought Felix little respite. On January 1, Clara Schumann gave the premiere of her husband’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54, expanded, just months before, by the composer from a one-movement Phantasie to a three-movement concerto. When, two days later, Fanny arrived from Berlin for a visit, Felix organized an evening party with the Schumanns and possibly took up the viola part in Robert’s Piano Quartet Op. 47. 88 At the farewell concert of Helen Dolby on January 15, Felix played his old Rondo brillant Op. 29, prefaced by a free improvisation as a slow introduction. Then, in rapid succession, came three subscription concerts, with selections from the incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (January 22), Beethoven’s Ruins of Athens (January 29), and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (February 5), a performance attended by Devrient, who now “understood the strange colossal work for the first time.” 89
Especially memorable was the concert given for the benefit of the orchestral pension fund on February 12. According to Ludwig Rellstab, the “pearl of the evening” was Felix’s performance of Beethoven’s 32 Variations for piano in C minor, 90 which may well have inspired this account by Otto Goldschmidt of Felix’s approach to the instrument: “His mechanism … was extremely subtle, and developed with the lightest of wrists (never from the arm); he therefore never strained the instrument or hammered. His chord-playing was beautiful, and based on a special theory of his own. His use of the pedal was very sparing, clearly defined, and therefore effective; his phrasing beautifully clear.” 91 The program also included three contemporary works. If Louis Spohr’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (1845) was the least provocative, Robert Schumann’s “genial” Overture, Scherzo, and Finale Op. 52 (1841, revised 1845) came across as something of a lightweight miscalculation. The press, however, reserved its strongest criticism for Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture, which elicited only lukewarm applause. The opera had received its premiere in Dresden in October 1845, when Schumann reported to Felix: “Wagner has just completed an opera—he’s certainly an ingenious fellow, full of the most extravagant ideas and immeasurably audacious, but believe me, he can hardly set down and think out four measures either beautifully or correctly.” But after a second performance, Schumann reversed himself, noting that “from the stage everything appears quite differently” than from a piano-vocal score. 92 Presumably the two friends discussed the work when the Schumanns visited Leipzig in January. Be that as it may, the Leipzig press reacted in a decidedly negative tone. In particular, Rellstab complained about the descending, two-note sigh figure in the violins with which Wagner “over satiated” the audience: the “groaning, sighing, and whimpering” was interminable, so that one had to doubt the taste of a composer who put his listeners in such a painful mood. 93 According to Hans von Bülow, the Gewandhaus reading was in response to the realization, after the Dresden premiere, that Wagner had broken new ground in his opera, but the Leipzig performance was “unpleasant beyond all measure—an execution, in the
particular sense of the word.” And, von Bülow asserted, Felix’s “morose demeanor” (mißmuthige Miene ) while he conducted only encouraged the audience to reject the work. 94 For whatever reason, Felix’s sole performance of Wagner’s music reinforced in Leipzig a general antipathy toward the Dresden Kapellmeister, a rejection Wagner later did not hesitate to ascribe to Felix’s influence.
Among the audience that night was Hans Christian Andersen, who, after visiting Jenny Lind in Weimar (she was “extremely fond of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy,” he noted in his diary), had proceeded to Leipzig to discuss with publishers a new, collected German edition of his works. When the overture “met with opposition,” he applauded, for he recognized within the music “an entire painting.” For a week Andersen enjoyed daily meetings with Felix; the writer attended a selskab , or evening musical party, arranged by Felix, and heard the harpist Parish-Alvars at one of the concerts. 95 In exchange, Andersen delighted his Leipzig admirers with readings from his works and endured teasing from the composer about the prevalence of storks in the fairy tales. 96
Early in March Felix found a brief respite from his Gewandhaus duties in Berlin, when he attended the baptism of his brother’s daughter Katharine and confirmation of Fanny’s son, Sebastian. 97 Felix heeded a royal summons to appear in Dresden (March 28), where he privately entertained the court. 98 The following day, he participated in a morning musicale, organized by Eduard Bendemann and attended by the widow of Carl Maria von Weber. With Clara Schumann, Felix shared the task of performing Beethoven’s Appassionata Piano Sonata and also selected movements from the Midsummer Night’s Dream music, arranged for piano duet. Robert Schumann later recorded that on this occasion, the last time he heard his friend as a pianist, Felix described Liszt as a “constant exchange between scandal and apotheosis.” 99 Possibly during this visit too Felix attended a production of Tannhäuser , though the only passage for which he was able to compliment Wagner was some canonic imitation in the second finale. 100
Welcoming Moscheles’s decision to join the faculty of the Conservatory that fall, Felix remained the guiding force of the institution and took an active role in examining students. 101 On January 3, 1846, he began two classes in piano and one in composition, which met on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. For more than two months, the aspiring pianists strove to master the pearly virtuosity of the Hummel Septet in D minor, and then etudes of Chopin and fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier , before Felix allowed them in March to approach an old staple of his repertoire, Weber’s Konzertstück Op. 79. Rockstro informs us that Felix instilled a respect for the authority of composers’ scores, and rarely treated “questions of simple technique,” which were referred instead to other faculty. Rather, he was more concerned with “special forms of expression” and recommended his pupils emulate good singers. “You will learn far more from them,” he advised, “than from any players you are likely to meet with.” 102
In composition Felix accepted pupils advanced in music theory. His method of instruction was to correct their work in class, by adding comments about how to improve particular passages. If a student recommitted a mistake made several weeks before, Felix would draw upon his memory to reproduce the earlier faulty passage at the piano. 103 He devoted not a few classes to the intricacies of counterpoint, revealed on a large blackboard bearing eight red staves. On one Felix would write a cantus firmus and then invite students to generate additional parts, until all were filled. “The difficulty of adding a sixth, seventh, or eighth part to an exercise already complete in three, four, or five,” Rockstro noted, “will be best understood by those who have most frequently attempted the process.” Often, it was impossible to finish the exercise, but Felix “would never sanction the employment of a rest, as a means of escape from the gravest difficulty, until every available resource had been tried, in vain.” 104 Sometimes the exercises led to “checkmate,” with even the composer of the Octet unable to complete the final part without transgressing some rule of voice leading.
During the early months of 1846 Felix spared little effort to further his contacts with Jenny Lind, who visited Leipzig at the end of January, en route to Berlin to prepare for her debut as Valentine in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots . But when Jenny sprained her foot and was confined to quarters for several weeks, Felix comforted her from Leipzig with a long, chatty letter. 105 He discussed rehearsals for Gade’s new Ossianic cantata Comala (“Fingal, with his warriors, and harps, and horns, and spirits, plays an important part in it”) and Swedish folksongs. A few weeks later a recuperated Jenny returned to Leipzig. Once again her concert, announced for April 12, was sold out within hours. Because the orchestra was engaged the same day to perform an opera, 106 Felix undertook to accompany her arias of Pacini, Mozart, and Weber, one of Felix’s Suleika settings, and three Swedish Nationallieder , and performed Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and the Violin Sonata, Op. 30 No. 3, with Ferdinand David. But when Felix was about to begin some Lieder ohne Worte , he turned to the audience and escorted Clara Schumann, visiting from Dresden, to the piano. Leipzigers were thus treated to appearances by four of the most eminent musicians of the day.
In January Felix had agreed to direct the twenty-eighth Lower Rhine Musical Festival, scheduled for Pentecost in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), and he looked forward to making “a little music together” 107 with Jenny, who like himself had the “love of Art so deeply implanted” in her soul. Even the prospect of this collaboration did not satisfy him, and he also actively pursued the idea of writing an opera for her. Though already corresponding with Geibel about Die Lorelei (in May Felix would ask Devrient to assist the poet), 108 Felix hedged his bets by approaching another potential collaborator. His choice was Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, a writer and actress with whom Jenny had studied German. Between April 1846 and February 1847, Felix and Charlotte exchanged ideas about numerous subjects; 109 Felix himself mentioned Joan of Arc, the Lorelei, Goethe’s Faust , and the Nibelung saga, though the discussion centered chiefly on the Peasants’ War of 1524—unknown to Charlotte, Devrient had forwarded a libretto on the same subject to Felix in May 1846—Achim von Arnim’s story Die Kronenwächter , and the legend of Genoveva. Only the last produced a tangible result, a scenarium Charlotte sent to Felix on May 19. 110 But the composer’s habitual reservations derailed the project: in Felix’s view, she had strayed too far from the popular legend by introducing secondary figures and had invented too many motivations for the characters’ actions. Charlotte’s work came to a grinding halt, Felix rejected Devrient’s libretto for its excessive “historical ballast,” 111 and Geibel’s Lorelei remained the only viable option.
Of new compositions, Felix finished his commission for Liège, Lauda Sion , on February 6 and dispatched it to Belgium two weeks later. 112 The composer had delayed completing the score, he explained, owing to his decision to set Thomas Aquinas’s entire text, and the work had grown to nearly half an hour in length. A new work commissioned for the German-Flemish Singing Festival in Cologne, the part-song An die Künstler , Op. 68, offered considerably less resistance and was ready on April 19. 113 There is some evidence that around this time Felix considered fashioning a seventh volume of Lieder ohne Worte . In December, he had composed two piano Kinderstücke (published posthumously as Op. 102 Nos. 3 and 5), and in April he sent a manuscript of six Lieder ohne Worte , with Op. 85 Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 5, the Reiterlied , and Op. 102 No. 2, to Frau von Lüttichau, wife of the Dresden theatrical Intendant. 114 Felix never saw the new volume into print; rather, after his death, it devolved to Simrock to cobble together the seventh and eighth volumes, Opp. 85 and 102, from piano pieces left in the composer’s estate.
All these projects did not distract Felix from his chief effort—Elijah . Though much of the libretto for the second part remained in a tentative state, Felix plunged into the music for the first part in the early months of 1846. He does not appear, however, to have composed the numbers of the oratorio in any particular order. Thus, when Eduard Devrient visited Leipzig earl
y in February, the actor found that Felix had begun, “unconsciously, to copy older masters, especially Sebastian Bach, and that his writings exhibited certain mannerisms,” 115 an assertion Martin Staehelin has used to date around this time Elijah’s aria from the second part, “Es ist genug” (“It is enough, O Lord,” No. 26), closely modeled on “Es ist vollbracht” from Bach’s St. John Passion. By March, Felix could report he was “now very busy at my Oratorio,” and at the end of the month Robert Schumann recorded in his diary that Felix was in the “full fire” of inspiration. 116 By mid-May, as Part 1 neared completion, Felix optimistically wrote to Jenny: “Sometimes, in my room, I have jumped up to the ceiling, when it seemed to promise so very well.” 117 He made arrangements for William Bartholomew to begin fitting English words to the score, composed to the German text. On May 23, just days before he was due in Aachen, Felix sent to London the whole of Part 1. 118
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