Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from Italy and Switzerland Part 16

Farewell! May every happiness attend you all!

FELIX.

Paris, December 19th, 1831.

Dear Father,

Receive my hearty thanks for your letter of the 7th. Though I do not quite apprehend your meaning on some points, and also may differ from you, still I have no doubt that this will come all right when we talk things over together, especially if you permit me, as you have always. .h.i.therto done, to express my opinion in a straight-forward manner. I allude chiefly to your suggestion, that I should procure a libretto for an opera from some French poet, and then have it translated, and compose the music for the Munich stage.[25]

[25] Felix Mendelssohn, during his stay in Munich, received a commission from the director of the theatre, to write an opera for Munich.

Above all, I must tell you how sincerely I regret that you have only now made known to me your views on this subject. I went to Dusseldorf, as you know, expressly to consult with Immermann on the point. I found him ready, and willing; he accepted the proposal, promising to send me the poem by the end of May at the latest, so I do not myself see how it is possible for me now to draw back; indeed I do not wish it, as I place entire confidence in him. I do not in the least understand what you allude to in your last letter, about Immermann, and his incapacity to write an opera. Although I by no means agree with you in this opinion, still it would have been my duty to have settled nothing without your express sanction, and I could have arranged the affair by letter from here, I believed however that I was acting quite to your satisfaction when I made him my offer. In addition to this, some new poems that he read to me, convinced me more than ever that he was a true poet, and supposing that I had an equal choice in merit, I would always decide rather in favour of a German than a French libretto; and lastly, he has fixed on a subject which has been long in my thoughts, and which, if I am not mistaken, my mother wished to see made into an opera,--I mean Shakspeare's "Tempest". I was therefore particularly pleased with this, so I shall doubly regret if you do not approve of what I have done. In any event, however, I entreat that you will neither be displeased with me, nor distrustful with regard to the work, nor cease to take any interest in it.

From what I know of Immermann, I feel a.s.sured I may expect a first-rate libretto. What I alluded to about his solitary life, merely referred to his inward feelings and perceptions; for in other respects he is well acquainted with what is pa.s.sing in the world. He knows what people like, and what to give them; but above all he is a genuine artist, which is the chief thing; but I am sure I need not say that I will not compose music for any words I do not consider really good, or which do not inspire me, and for this purpose it is essential that I should have your approval. I intend to reflect deeply on the poem before I begin the music. The dramatic interest or (in the best sense) the theatrical portion, I shall of course immediately communicate to you, and in short look on the affair in the serious light it deserves. The first step however is taken, and I cannot tell you how deeply I should regret your not being pleased.

There is however one thing which consoles me, and it is that if I were to rely on my own judgment, I would again act precisely as I have now done, though I have had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with a great deal of French poetry, and seeing it in the most favourable light. Pray pardon me for saying exactly what I think. To compose for the translation of a French libretto, seems to me for various reasons impracticable, and I have an idea that you are in favour of it more on account of the _success_ which it is likely to enjoy than for its own _intrinsic merit_. Moreover I well remember how much you disliked the subject of the "Muette de Portici," a _Muette_ too who had gone astray, and of "Wilhelm Tell," which the author seems almost purposely to have rendered tedious.

The success however these enjoy all over Germany does not a.s.suredly depend on the work itself being either good or dramatic, for "Tell"

is neither, but on their coming from Paris, and having pleased there. Certainly there is _one_ sure road to fame in Germany,--that by Paris and London; still it is not the only one; this is proved not only by all Weber's works, but also by those of Spohr, whose "Faust" is here considered cla.s.sical music, and which is to be given at the great Opera-house in London next season. Besides, I could not possibly take that course, as my great opera has been bespoken for Munich, and I have accepted the commission. I am resolved therefore to make the attempt in Germany, and to remain and work there so long as I can continue to do so, and yet maintain myself, for this I consider my first duty. If I find that I cannot do this, then I must leave it for London or Paris, where it is easier to get on. I see indeed where I should be better remunerated and more honoured, and live more gaily, and at my ease, than in Germany, where a man must press forward, and toil, and take no rest,--still, if I can succeed there, I prefer the latter.

None of the new libretti here, would in my opinion be attended with any success whatever, if brought out for the first time on a German stage. One of the distinctive characteristics of them all, is precisely of a nature that I should resolutely oppose, although the taste of the present day may demand it, and I quite admit that it may in general be more prudent to go with the current than to struggle against it. I allude to that of immorality. In "Robert le Diable" the nuns come one after the other to allure the hero of the piece, till at last the abbess succeeds in doing so: the same hero is conveyed by magic into the apartment of her whom he loves, and casts her from him in an att.i.tude which the public here applauds, and probably all Germany will do the same; she then implores his mercy in a grand aria. In another opera a young girl divests herself of her garments, and sings a song to the effect that next day at this time she will be married; all this produces effect, but I have no music for such things. I consider it ign.o.ble, so if the present epoch exacts this style, and considers it indispensable, then I will write oratorios.

Another strong reason why it would prove impracticable is that no French poet would undertake to furnish me with a poem. Indeed, it is no easy matter to procure one from them for this stage, for all the best authors are overwhelmed with commissions. At the same time I think it quite possible that I might succeed in getting one; still it never would occur to any of them to write a libretto for a _German_ theatre. In the first place it would be much more feasible to give the opera here, and infinitely more rational too; in the second place, they would decline writing for any other stage than the French; in fact they could not realize any other. Above all it would be impossible to procure for them a sum equivalent to what they receive here from the theatres, and what they draw as their share from the _part d'auteur_.

I know you will forgive me for having told you my opinion without reserve. You always allowed me to do so in conversation, so I hope you will not put a wrong construction on what I have written, and I beg you will amend my views by communicating your own.--Your

FELIX.

Paris, December 20th, 1831.

Dear Rebecca,

I went yesterday to the Chambre des Deputes, and I must now tell you about it; but what do you care about the Chambre des Deputes?

It is a political song, and you would rather hear whether I have composed any love songs, or bridal songs, or wedding songs; but it is a sad pity, that no songs but political ones are composed here.

I believe I never in my life pa.s.sed three such unmusical weeks as these. I feel as if I never could again think of composing; this all arises from the "juste milieu;" but it is still worse to be with musicians, for they do not _wrangle_ about politics, but _lament_ over them. One has lost his place, another his t.i.tle, a third his money, and they say this all proceeds from the "Milieu."

Yesterday I saw the "Milieu," in a light grey coat, and with a n.o.ble air, in the first place on the Ministerial bench. He was sharply attacked by M. Mauguin, who has a very long nose. Of course you don't care for all this; but what of that? I must have a chat with you. In Italy I was lazy, in Switzerland a wild student, in Munich a consumer of cheese and beer, and so in Paris I must talk politics. I intended to have composed various symphonies, and to have written some songs for certain ladies in Frankfort, Dusseldorf, and Berlin; but as yet not a chance of it. Paris obtrudes herself, and as above all things I must now see Paris, so I am busily engaged in seeing it, and am dumb.

Moreover I am freezing with cold--another drawback. I cannot contrive to make my room warm, and I am not to get another and warmer apartment, till New Year's Day. In a dark little hole on the ground floor, overlooking a small damp garden, where my feet are like ice, how can I possibly write music? It is bitterly cold, and an Italian like myself is peculiarly susceptible. At this moment a man outside my window is singing a political song to a guitar.

I live a reckless life--out morning, noon, and night: to-day at Baillot's; to-morrow I go to some friends of the Bigots; the next day, Valentin; Monday, Fould; Tuesday, Hiller; Wednesday, Gerard; and the previous week it was just the same. In the forenoon I rush off to the Louvre, and gaze at the Raphaels, and my favourite t.i.tian; a person might well wish for a dozen more eyes to look at such a picture.

Yesterday I was in the Chamber of Peers, who were engaged in p.r.o.nouncing judgment on their own hereditary rights, and I saw M.

Pasquier's wig. The day before I paid two musical visits, to the grumbling Cherubini, and the kind Herz. There is a large sign-board before the house: "Manufacture de Pianos, par Henri Herz, Marchand de Modes et de Nouveautes." I thought this formed one, not observing that it was a notice of two different firms, so I went in below, and found myself surrounded by gauze, and lace, and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs: so, rather abashed, I asked where the pianos were. A number of Herz's fair scholars with industrious faces, were waiting upstairs. I sat down by the fire and read your interesting account of our dear father's birthday, and so forth. Herz presently arrived, and gave audience to his pupils. We were very loving, recalled old times, and besprinkled each other mutually with great praise. On his pianos is inscribed: "Medaille d'or. Exposition de 1827." This was very imposing.

From thence I went to Erard's, where I tried over his instruments, and remarked written on them in large letters: "Medaille d'or.

Exposition de 1827." My respect seemed to diminish. When I went home I opened my own instrument by Pleyel, and to be sure there also I saw in large letters: "Medaille d'or. Exposition de 1827." The matter is like the t.i.tle of "Hofrath," but it is characteristic. It is alleged that the chambers are about to discuss the following proposition: "Tous les Francais du s.e.xe masculin ont des leur naissance le droit de porter l'ordre de la Legion d'Honneur," and the permission to appear without the order, can only be obtained by special services. You really scarcely see a man in the street without a bit of coloured ribbon, so it is no longer a distinction.

_Apropos_, shall I be lithographed full length? Answer what you will, I don't intend to do it. One afternoon in Berlin, when I was standing _unter den Linden_ before Schenk's shop looking at H----'s and W----'s lithographs, I made a solemn vow to myself, unheard by man, that I would never allow myself to be hung up till I became a great man. The temptation in Munich was strong; there they wished to drape me with a Carbonaro cloak, a stormy sky in the background, and my fac-simile underneath, but I happily got off by adhering to my principles. Here again I am rather tempted, for the likenesses are very striking, but I keep my vow; and if, after all, I never do become a great man, though posterity will be deprived of a portrait, it will have an absurdity the less.

It is now the 24th, and we had a very pleasant evening at Baillot's yesterday. He plays beautifully, and had collected a very musical society of attentive ladies and enthusiastic gentlemen, and I have seldom been so well amused in any circle, or enjoyed such honours.

It was the greatest possible delight to me to hear my quartett in E flat major (dedicated to B. P.) performed in Paris by Baillot's quartett, and they executed it with fire and spirit. They commenced with a quintett by Bocherini, an old-fashioned _perruque_, but a very amiable old gentleman underneath it. The company then asked for a sonata of Bach's; we selected the one in A major; old familiar tones dawned once more on me, of the time when Baillot played it with Madame Bigot.[26] We urged each other on, the affair became animated, and so thoroughly amused both us and our audience, that we immediately commenced the one in E major, and next time we mean to introduce the four others.

[26] The lady who instructed Mendelssohn in the piano in Paris, when the family resided there for a time in 1816.

Then my turn came to play a solo. I was in the vein to extemporize successfully, and felt that I did so. The guests being now in a graver mood, I took three themes from the previous sonatas, and worked them up to my heart's content; it seemed to give immense pleasure to those present, for they shouted and applauded like mad.

Then Baillot gave my quartett; his manner towards me has something very kind, and I was doubly pleased, as he is rather cold at first and seldom makes advances to any one. He appears a good deal depressed by the loss of his situation. I saw a number of old well-known faces, and they asked after you all, and recalled many anecdotes of that former period.

When I was pa.s.sing through Louvain two years ago with my "Liederspiel" in my head, and my injured knee,[27] I seized the bra.s.s handle of a pump to prevent myself from falling; and when I returned this year in the same miserable diligence, driven by a postilion exactly similar, with a big queue, the "Liederspiel," my knee, and Italy, were all things of the past; and yet the handle of the pump was still hanging there, as clean and brightly rubbed up as ever, having survived 1830, and all the revolutionary storms, and remaining quite unchanged. This is sentimental; my father must not read it, for it is the old story of the past and the present, which we discussed so eagerly one fine evening, and which recurs to me among the crowd here at every step. I thought of it at the Madeleine, and when I went to aunt J----'s, and at the Hotel des Princes, and at the gallery, which my father showed me fifteen years ago, and when I saw the coloured signs, which at that time impressed me exceedingly, and are now grown brown and shabby.

[27] Mendelssohn had been thrown out of a cabriolet in London in 1829, and his knee seriously injured.

Moreover this is Christmas Eve; but I feel little interest in it, or in New Year's Night either. Please G.o.d, another year may wear a very different aspect, and I will not then go to the theatre on Christmas Eve, as I am about to do to-night, to hear Lablache and Rossini for the first time. How little I care about it! I should much prefer _Polichinelles_ and apples to-day, and I think it very doubtful whether the orchestra will play as pretty a symphony as my "Kinder-Sinfonie."[28] I must be satisfied with it however. I am now modulating into the minor key, a fault with which the "ecole Allemande" are often reproached, and as I profess not to belong to the latter, the French say I am _cosmopolite_. Heaven defend me from being anything of the kind!

[28] A "Kinder-Sinfonie," composed by Mendelssohn in the year 1829, for a Christmas family fete.

And now good-bye; a thousand compliments from Bertin de Vaux, Girod de l'Ain, Dupont de l'Eure, Tracy, Sacy, Pa.s.sy and other kind friends. I had intended to have told you in this letter how Salverte attacked the Ministers, and how during this time a little _emeute_ took place on the Pont Neuf; how I sat in the Chambers along with Franck, in the midst of St. Simoniens; how witty Dupin was; but no more at present. May you all be well and happy this evening, and thinking of me!

FELIX.

Paris, December 28th, 1831.

Dear Madam f.a.n.n.y,

For three months past I have been thinking of writing you a musical letter, but my procrastination has its revenge, for though I have been a fortnight here, I don't know whether I shall still be able to do so. I have appeared in every possible mood here; in that of an inquiring, admiring traveller; a c.o.xcomb; a Frenchman, and yesterday actually as a Peer of France; but not yet as a musician.

Indeed there is little likelihood of the latter, for the aspect of music here is miserable enough.

The concerts in the Conservatoire, which were my great object, probably will not take place at all, because the Commission of the Ministry wished to give a Commission to the Commission of the society, to deprive a Commission of Professors of their share of the profits; on which the Commission of the Conservatoire replied to the Commission of the Ministry, that they might go and be hanged (suspended), and then they would not consent to it. The newspapers make some very severe comments on this, but you need not read them, as these papers are prohibited in Berlin; but you don't lose much by this. The Opera Comique is bankrupt, and so it has had _relache_ since I came; at the Grand Opera, they only give little operas, which amuse me, though they neither provoke nor excite me.

"Armida" was the last great opera, but they gave it in three acts, and this was two years ago. Choron's "Inst.i.tut" is closed, the "Chapelle Royale" is gone out like a light; not a single Ma.s.s is to be heard on Sundays in all Paris, unless accompanied by serpents.

Malibran is to appear here next week for the last time. So much the better, say you: retire within yourself, and write music for "Ach Gott vom Himmel," or a symphony, or the new violin quartett which you mentioned in your letter to me of the 28th, or any other serious composition; but this is even more impossible, for what is going on here is most deeply interesting, and entices you out, suggesting matter for thought and memory and absorbing every moment of time. Accordingly I was yesterday in the Chambre des Pairs, and counted along with them the votes, destined to abolish a very ancient privilege; immediately afterwards I hurried off to the Theatre Francais, where Mars was to appear for the first time for a year past; (she is fascinating beyond conception; a voice that we shall never hear equalled, causing you to weep, and yet to feel pleasure in doing so). To-day I must see Taglioni again, who along with Mars const.i.tutes two Graces (if I find a third in my travels, I mean to marry her), and afterwards I mean to go to Gerard's cla.s.sical _salon_. I lately went to hear Lablache and Rubini, after hearing Odillon Barrot quarrel with the Ministry. Having seen the pictures in the Louvre in the morning, I went to Baillot's; so what chance is there of living in retirement? The outer world is too tempting.

There are moments, however, when my thoughts turn inwards--such as on that memorable evening, when Lablache sang so beautifully, or on Christmas-day, when there were no bells and no festivities, or when Paul's letter came from London, inviting me to visit him next spring; the said spring to be pa.s.sed in England. Then I feel that all that now interests me is merely superficial: that I am neither a politician, nor a dancer, nor an actor, nor a _bel esprit_, but a _musician_--so I take courage, and am now writing a professional letter to my dear sister.

My conscience smote me, especially when I read about your new music that you so carefully conducted on my father's birthday, and I reproached myself for not having said a single word to you about your previous composition; but I cannot let you off that, my colleague! What the deuce made you think of setting your G horns so high? Did you ever hear a G horn take the high G without a squeak?

I only put this to yourself! and at the end of this introduction, when wind instruments come in, does not the following note

[Music]

stare you in the face, and do not these deep oboes growl away all pastoral feeling, and all bloom? Do you not know that you ought to take out a license to sanction your writing the low B for oboes, and that it is only permitted on particular occasions, such as witches, or some great grief? Has not the composer evidently, in the A major air, overloaded the voice by too many other parts, so that the delicate intention, and the lovely melody of this otherwise charming piece, with all its beauties, is quite obscured and eclipsed?

To speak seriously, however, this aria is very beautiful, and particularly fascinating. But I have a remark to make about your two choruses, which indeed applies rather to the text than to you.

These two choruses are not sufficiently original. This sounds absurd; but my opinion is that it is the fault of the words, that express nothing original; one single expression might have improved the whole, but as they now stand, they would be equally suitable for church music, a cantata, an offertorium, etc. Where, however, they are not of such universal application, as for example, the lament at the end, they seem to be sentimental and not natural. The words of the last chorus are too material ("mit dem kraftlosen Mund, und der sich regenden Zunge"). At the beginning of the aria alone, are the words vigorous and spirited, and from them emanated the whole of your lovely piece of music. The choruses are of course fine, for they are written by you; but in the first place, it seems to me that they might be by any other good master, and secondly, as if they were not _necessarily_ what they are, indeed as if they might have been _differently_ composed. This arises from the poetry not imposing any particular music. I know that the latter is often the case with my own compositions; but though I am fully aware of the beam in my own eyes, I would fain extract the mote from yours, to relieve you at once from its pressure.

My _resume_ therefore is, that I would advise you to be more cautious in the choice of your words, because, after all, it is not everything in the Bible, even if it suits the theme, that is suggestive of _music_; but you have probably obviated these objections of mine in your new cantata, before being aware of them, in which case, I might as well have said nothing. So much the better if it be so, and then you can prosecute me for defamation!

So far as your music and composition are concerned, they quite suit my taste; the young lady's cloven foot nowhere peeps forth, and if I knew any _Kapellmeister_ capable of writing such music, I would give him a place at my court. Fortunately I know no such person, and there is no occasion to place you at my right hand at court, as you are there already.[29]