its completion.

My last word is one of gratitude to Sir George Grove for his kindness in contributing an Introduction.

F.G.E.

Hampstead,
February, 1896.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE HISTORY OF
MENDELSSOHN’S “ELIJAH.”

CHAPTER I.

THE LIBRETTO.

Mendelssohn had no sooner completed his first oratorio, "St. Paul," than he began to think about setting another Bible story to music. "St. Paul" was produced at the Lower Rhine Musical Festival, Düsseldorf, May 22, 1836, under the composer's personal direction. Mendelssohn was then twenty-seven years of age. He spent six weeks in the summer of that year at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, as locum tenens for his friend Schelble, the founder of a Choral Society, famous then and now, under the name of the Cäcilien-Verein.

During his temporary residence in the old Hanseatic city, Mendelssohn met Mdlle. Cécile Jeanrenaud, to whom he was betrothed in September. He spent the month of August at Scheveningen for the benefit of the sea-bathing there, and also, as we learn from the "Recollections" of his friend Devrient, to test the strength of his affection for the beautiful Cécile. Although his thoughts naturally and constantly turned towards Frankfort, he did not neglect his beloved art. He wrote the following letter, hitherto unpublished, to his old and attached friend, Carl Klingemann, in London.[1]