LETTERS
OF
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY
FROM
ITALY AND SWITZERLAND.

TRANSLATED BY LADY WALLACE.

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE
By JULIE DE MARGUERITTES.

BOSTON:
OLIVER DITSON — CO., 277 WASHINGTON STREET.
NEW YORK: C. H. DITSON — CO.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was born at Hamburg, on the third of February, 1809. The name to which he was destined to add such lustre, was already high in the annals of fame. Moses Mendelssohn, his grandfather, a great Jewish philosopher, one of the most remarkable men of his time, was the author of profound Metaphysical works, written both in German and Hebrew. To this great power of intellect, Moses Mendelssohn added a purity and dignity of character worthy of the old stoics. The epigraph on the bust of this ancestor of the composer, shows the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries:

"Faithful to the religion of his fathers, as wise as Socrates, like Socrates teaching the immortality of the soul, and like Socrates leaving a name that is immortal."

One of Moses Mendelssohn's daughters married Frederick Schlegel, and swerving from the religion in which both had been brought up, both became Roman Catholics.

Joseph Mendelssohn, the eldest son of this great old man, was also distinguished for his literary taste, and has left two excellent works of very different characters, one on Dante, the other on the system of a paper currency.

In conjunction with his brother, Abraham, he founded the banking-house of Mendelssohn — Company at Berlin, still flourishing under the management of the sons of the original founders, the brothers and cousins of Felix, the subject of this memoir.

George Mendelssohn the son of Joseph, was also a distinguished political writer and Professor in the University at Bonn.

With such an array of intellectual ancestry, the Mendelssohn of our day came into the world at Hamburg, on the third of February,1809. He was named Felix, and a more appropriate name could not have been found for him, for in character, circumstance and endowment, he was supremely happy. Goethe, speaking of him, said "the boy was born on a lucky day." His first piece of good fortune, was in having not only an excellent virtuous woman for his mother, but a woman who, besides these qualities, possessed extraordinary intellect and had received an education that fitted her to be the mother of children endowed as hers were. She professed the Lutheran creed, in which her children were brought up. Being of a distinguished commercial family and an heiress, her husband added her name of Bartholdy to his own. Mme. Mendelssohn Bartholdy's other children were, Fanny her first-born, whose life is entirely interwoven with that of her brother Felix, and Paul and Rebecca, born some years later.

When yet a boy, Felix removed with his parents to Berlin, probably at the time of the formation of the banking house. The Prussian capital has often claimed the honor of being his birthplace, but that distinction really belongs to Hamburg.

His extraordinary musical talent was not long in developing itself. His sister Fanny, his "soul's friend" and constant companion, almost as richly endowed as himself, aroused his emulation, and they studied music together first as an art, and then as a science, to be the foundation of future works of inspiration and genius.

Zelter, severe and classic, profoundly scientific, inexorable for all that was not true science, became the teacher of these two gifted children in composition and in counterpoint. For piano-forte playing, Berger was the professor, though some years later Moscheles added the benefit of his counsels, and Felix was fond of calling himself the pupil of Moscheles, with whom in after life he contracted a close friendship. Zelter was exceedingly proud of his pupil, soon discovering that instead of an industrious and intelligent child, one of the greatest musical geniuses ever known was dawning on the world. When he was but fifteen, Zelter took the young musician to Weimar, and secured for him the acquaintance and good will of Goethe, which as long as Goethe lived, seemed to be the necessary consecration of all talent in Germany. By this time not only was he an admirable performer on the piano, possessed of a talent for improvisation and a memory so wonderful, that not only could he play almost all Bach, Händel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven by heart, but he could also without hesitation accompany a whole opera from memory, provided he had but seen the score once. The overture to Midsummer Night's Dream, so popular now in every country, was composed before he was seventeen, and was played for the first time as a duet on the piano by his sister Fanny and himself on the 19th November, 1826. This is indeed the inspiration of youth with its brilliancy, its buoyancy, its triumphant joy, full of the poetry of a young heart, full of the imagination of a mind untainted by the world. It was not till some years after, that Mendelssohn completed the music to Shakspeare's great play. In 1827, Felix left the University of Berlin with great honors. He was a profound classical scholar, and has left as a specimen of his knowledge, a correct, graceful and elegant translation of Terence's comedy of Andria, a work greatly approved of by Goethe. He excelled in gymnastics, was an elegant rider, and like Lord Byron, a bold and accomplished swimmer. The year he left the University, he went to England, where Henrietta Sonntag was in the height of her fame. He played in several concerts where she sang, as well as with Moscheles, his old friend and teacher, now established in London.

On his return to Germany in 1830, he visited Goethe at Weimar, and there planned his journey to Italy, a country which all men of genius yearn after, as the promised land of inspiration. When in Rome, Felix Mendelssohn began the grand Cantata of the Walpurgis Night, to Goethe's words, at which he worked for some years. On his return from his travels, Mendelssohn, who had now all the assurance and self-possession of an artist, was appointed chapel-master at Düsseldorf, a position which gave him the direction of the grand musical festivals held at that time in this city and in Aix-la-Chapelle. It was during his residence in Düsseldorf, that he composed his oratorio of St. Paul, and also, the first set of his "Songs without Words" for the piano, where the music, by its varied expression and its intensity, alone told the story of the poet. These compositions were a novelty for piano-forte players, and inaugurated a new style, full of interest, gradually setting aside the variations and sonatas which had become so meaningless and tedious. The oratorio of St. Paul was not given until 1836, when it was produced at Düsseldorf, under his own special superintendence. Mendelssohn composed very rapidly, but he was cautious in giving his works to the public, until they thoroughly satisfied his judgment, the most critical to which they could be submitted.

In the latter part of 1836, having gone to Frankfort, to direct a concert of the Ceciliaverein, he became acquainted with Cecilia Jeanrenaud, a beautiful and accomplished girl, the second daughter of a clergyman of the Reformed Church, and in the spring of 1837 she became his wife. The marriage