Magnificent Musical ALS by 21-year-old Mendelssohn from Rome Mentioning Many of his Most Famous Works Including the “Hebrides Overture,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the Death of the Pope, Goethe, and More

At Auction

Item: 23416

Add to Wishlist

MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY, FELIX. (1809-1847). German composer, and one of the most gifted musicians of the 19^th century. ALS. (“Felix MB”). 3 1/8 pp. 4to. On a single folded sheet with the integral address leaf attached. Rome, December 26, 1830 and January 2, 1831. To his close friend and librettist KARL KLINGEMANN (1794-1870). In German with translation.

“To you, my dear Klingemann, it is that I want to write today; You will remember what day it is, maybe even think of me once in a while, and as nothing would come to me today other than the memory of the happy days of old, I am driven to speak to you, to whom I am grateful for them. You have not answered my letter from Munich, I almost got mad at you because of this, but when I think back to how you gave us the brightest holiday a year ago today, I just cannot do it; and I write to you, because for a long time now, on all the well-remembered days that are now becoming anniversaries, I have been with you and have remembered each word we spoke then, and thus I see amid all the new unforgettable things that I encounter here, visions of our past, and I relive my weeks of illness when I was so cordially cared for by you, rolled to the piano, bandaged, tucked in, pampered as I will never be able to forget or thank you. Then came the days when we studied together, and when by chance I found among your papers the Liederspiel already begun (which, as I may now confess, touched me very much). Then I drove out to Attwood’s, you came later, then Horn arrived, we sat up late together and so it went on until the Liederspiel was performed one year ago today. Next to me lies the white baton that you know; it was employed there for the last time, and life has truly turned serious since then, but the mere thought of you, friend, recalls all that joy to me, as though I lived through it again and was close to you. If you feel lonely in a dark moment, I beg you, think of me, and the idea of possessing a human being so completely is a happy one; whenever I have since experienced happiness or the lack of it, you were with me. That sounds almost sentimental, and neither of us like that sort of thing, if only it was not so true. Here I am in Rome; it is a grand word, and every day I feel more how much it is trying to express; and nature and past are able to express it, that is shown here, and one goes from delight to delight which God and the past give us, but the people I know here are lacking and I therefore want to say that I have never lived so lonely as I have here. Although I am in society almost every evening, have to make and hear lots of music, encounter new figures every day, but I lack communication, and thus the best remains unsaid. Whether that is good and helps me will be shown hereafter, but I just wish you were here. It would change my entire life. While one may be more energetic – for rarely have I worked so much and so quickly as I have done here – the right kind of joy is experienced only while one is working, afterwards it is missing far too much. Now – I know nothing of you, you haven’t written to my loved ones either, and that is not right that you should retreat into yourself again like that. Let us hear from you, Klingemann, write a few words to me how you live and think so that I may enjoy a few of your words… Jan. 2. Since then, the New Year has arrived; what it will bring, we will have to await with trepidation. The last and the first day were dreary and boring to me, as usual. On New Year’s Eve, I attended a few gatherings, (the last one was at Bendemann’s) and had to make visits on New Year’s Day. How people meet and thoughtlessly, or jokingly wish each other a happy future – the most serious wish there is – how they open their doors to the most foolish ceremonies, send cards to each other through their servants, all the while not a single one of them appears to think what kind of holiday this actually is. How on New Year’s Eve they seek to shoo away the sad idea with jokes, drinking, lead casting, and are still not able to do it, that is fatal to me. Both these days are true days of repentance and one should experience them with oneself only and not be afraid and hide from serious thoughts. I put out my finished compositions from the last year on the table, the Symphonies in D Flat and the Hebrides Overture were among them, also much church music; and I had the pleasure to know that I still have enough in my head to last for next year. Thus I will be able to show you many new things when we find each other again. But why have you not sent me the romance-novel that you promised? You have no idea how I am longing to compose something from you again, and you wrote to me that you already read old folk tales to find the rest. With your words I feel that I don’t have to ‘make’ the music, it’s as though I extract it from them, and it stands before me, and whereas with other poems, namely Goethe, the words depart from the music and strive to dominate on their own, your poems call for sound, and there the true seeker cannot fail. This I have found only one other time, and peculiarly, when I had to compose something for the academy, in the Songs of Luther, which was given to me for the voyage by an acquaintance in Vienna; I beg you to read them, or if you cannot get them as a collection, then look up the following examples in the hymn book: ‘Though in midst of life we be,’ ‘Out of the deep I cry to thee,’ ‘To shepherds as they watched by night,’ ‘Look down, oh Lord, from heaven behold,’ ‘In peace and joy I now depart,’ in short, all of them. How each work calls for music, how each stanza is a piece unto itself, how there is progress, how movement and growth are to be found, that is too glorious, and I compose away at it very busily here in Rome, and ponder the monastery where he lived and convinced himself of the crazy antics of the lords. I have to write down for you the end of a long song, which you will not find in the hymn book, it is too lovely and you especially will enjoy it. The song is about two boys, who were being burned at the stake during the schism. At the end he says that the murderers libeled them even after they died and said that they had recanted everything for fear, and then the last stanza goes:

Then let them still go on and lie,

They cannot win a blessing;

And let us thank God heartily,

His Word again possessing.

Summer is even at our door,

The winter now has vanished,

The tender flowerets spring once more,

And he, who winter banished,

Will send a happy summer.

Thus I have a lot to do and create, but I would so very much love to have romances and fantasies from you, and so I ask you to send me something; be that as it may, we are all sentimental once in a while, and the rest will work itself out. My life here is so curiously colorful, a mixture of joy and gravity so that I am sometimes getting dizzy when I think about the present: in the morning until noon I work quietly in the sun (because it always shines quite warm and bright), thus I already have completed the Hebrides Overture, a Latin psalm for choir and orchestra, several of Luther’s songs for choir and a few other small things. Then I go out and see new things every day, galleries, villas, promenades, ruins, churches, and if I told you that I have been able to go to the Vatican only twice, think how filled with new impressions is each day; Schadow is here, he is very mild, lucid, and calm, sees and admires the old masters with modesty and thus I can visit the paintings and statues with him and learn much that is new to me. The pope has died. The ceremonies at St. Peter for his wake, the requiems, the beginning of the conclave have shown me a different side of Rome. I get easily acquainted with musicians through playing the piano, and I have risen to the position of an honorary member of the philharmonic society of Rome. That is yet another facet (but it’s going ‘decrescendo’) in short, that is how I spend the day until evening, and then I am going to society events as much as possible, namely there are several Englishwomen here, where I can try out my English, and when I see them promenading on the Monte Pincio I tell myself: run mi man. [sic]. My own thoughts in the morning, the immense monuments which are indelibly etched into my mind, the gay balls at night, how it all blends and forms a whole – it is too strange. And yet I am looking forward to England where I will find you again, and where we can all be together once more… I have met some Englishmen here, who made the most delightful company, as they had met me at that big party at Attwood’s, I have to thank them, and thus indirectly Attwood for very enjoyable hours and other lovely acquaintances, please thank old Attwood in my name for that, as well as for all his kindness and tell him that I intend to send him a letter and a few compositions by way of these Englishmen, (who go by the names of Mr. Newman Smith and Mr. Goodman, with the requisite Mrs.); but he has to excuse the poor style in advance; and give my love to the entire family and Miss Caroline. Taylors, now! But you know how I am feeling when I think of all of you in England, at least you must know that it will be always, and until my last days, the dearest, brightest memory of my youth. Do you remember when I saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the first time, later shooed about people at the ball with my baton, and in between sat in your room, waiting for you, who didn’t show up, and played your songs? Something like that can never be forgotten. Farewell and think of me and send me word of you… You have not answered my request from Munich either, you evil spirit! And now I don’t know if the pieces will be published by Cramer or not. At first I thought they had flat out refused and you did not want to write me that. But now that Mechetti has sold several of my other piano pieces to them at a very good profit, I do not believe it and I am now entirely in the dark about their fate. Please take care of them, and the titles, and send me the details.”

In the spring of 1829 Mendelssohn visited his close friend from Berlin, Karl Klingemann, a diplomat who lived in London. He introduced Mendelssohn to England’s grand salons and cultivated society enabling the 20-year-old composer to perform four concerts before heading north to Scotland. Mendelssohn’s trip through the Scottish Highlands became the stimulus for his Scottish Symphony and a voyage to the island of Staffa and its Fingal’s Cave inspired his Hebrides Overture. Shortly after his return to London, Mendelssohn hurt his knee, delaying his return to Germany. He recovered at the home of composer, organist and pupil of Mozart Thomas Attwood (1765-1838), and it is likely this injury to which he refers in our letter to Klingemann.

Mendelssohn notes that our letter is written on the first anniversary of the performance of his Liederspiel Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde (literally The Return Home from Abroad but known in English as Son and Stranger or Return of the Roamer). Mendelssohn composed the comic work to a libretto by Klingemann while staying in Wales in honor of his parents’ upcoming silver wedding anniversary on which occasion it was performed in front of 120 guests in their home on December 26, 1829. Family members or friends played all the roles. As it was composed for a private occasion, it was never again performed in Mendelssohn’s lifetime and only published posthumously. It is, clearly, to this joyous occasion that Mendelssohn alludes to at the beginning of our letter.

In October 1830, at the suggestion of German poet, playwright, and novelist Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832), himself the inspiration for several of Mendelssohn’s works, the composer traveled to Italy. In Rome, he sought out the company of musicians and artists and among those he met was German artist Friedrich Wilhelm von Schadow (1789-1862), with whom he traveled to Naples and Pompeii. His visit to “Bendemann” refers to the artist Edouard Bendemann (1811-1889), who was currently living in Rome and later married Schadow’s sister, Lida. Bendemann drew the famous pencil portrait of Mendelssohn on his deathbed. His sojourn in Rome, vividly described in our letter, was a period of great musical creativity. “Several significant compositions owe their origin to the fertilizing atmosphere of Rome,” (Mendelssohn: A New Image of the Composer and His Age, Werner). It was during this time, for example, that he began his Italian Symphony and completed The Hebrides, triumphantly announced in our letter, which premiered in London in the spring of 1832, along with his A Midsummer Night’s Dream, also mentioned in our missive.

Our letter also discusses the “Symphonies in D Flat,” Symphony No. 5 in D major/D minor, Op. 107, also known as “the Reformation Symphony,” composed in 1830 to commemorate the 300^th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, the foundational document of Lutheranism and for which he drew inspiration from Martin Luther’s hymn “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” Our letter discusses how the many other hymns of Luther inspired him.

Our letter also touches on the death of Pope Pius VIII (1761-1830) on November 30, whose papacy was the shortest of the 19^th century, and whose death, despite his ongoing ill health, led to speculation that he was murdered. He was succeeded by Pope Gregory XVI after a 50-day conclave.

An English pianist and composer whose admirers included Beethoven, Johann (John) Baptist Cramer (1771-1858) founded a London music publishing firm in 1824, publishing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 which Cramer gave the nickname the Emperor Concerto. Pietro Mechetti (1777-1850) was the proprietor of an eponymous music publishing firm in Vienna which published the works of Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss, and Mendelssohn.

This letter, absent the postscript, is published in Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s Briefwechsel mit Legationsrat Karl Klingemann in London, 1909, pp. 84-87. Our special thanks to one of the world’s leading Mendelssohn experts, Dr. Rudolf Elvers, for his help in researching this letter. Normal folding. Address leaf and wax seal intact, but the resulting tear affects several words. Light restoration, yet in overall fine condition. Mendelssohn letters of this length and quality have become increasingly rare. From the Rudolf Kallir collection.