Part 4

It enhances one’s respect for the artistic probity of Mendelssohn that he preserved his balance. He evaluated his work critically, carefully modified or enlarged it and obliged Bartholomew to make a quantity of changes in the English text. On April 16, 1847, he conducted the revised version in the first of four performances by the Sacred Harmonic Society in Exeter Hall, London. On April 23 the Queen and the Prince Consort heard the work. Albert wrote in the book of words and sent to Mendelssohn a dedication: “To the Noble Artist who, surrounded by the Baal-worship of debased art, has been able by his genius and science to preserve faithfully, like another Elijah, the Worship of True Art, and once more to accustom our ears, amid the whirl of empty frivolous sounds, to the pure tones of sympathetic feeling and legitimate harmony: to the Great Master, who makes us conscious of the unity of his conception, through the whole maze of his creation, from the soft whispering to the mighty raging of the elements. Inscribed in grateful remembrance by

Albert”

It was a fitting climax to Mendelssohn’s tenth visit to England—in some ways his most memorable, in any case his last.

Before Mendelssohn left London he paid a farewell visit to Buckingham Palace. He had a mysterious presentiment that he must leave hurriedly. Friends pressed him to remain in England a little longer. “Ah! I wish I may not already have stayed too long here! One more week of this unremitting fatigue and I should be killed outright”. He was manifestly ill. Fate caught up with him at Frankfort. Scarcely had he arrived in a state of prostration when he abruptly learned that his sister, Fanny Hensel, had died while at the piano conducting a choir rehearsal. With a shriek, Felix collapsed. The shock of the news and the violence of his fall on hearing it brought about a rupture of one of those delicate cerebral blood vessels which had caused so many deaths in the Mendelssohn family.

In a measure he recovered. He went to Baden-Baden and later to Switzerland. He wrote letters, sketched and still composed. He greeted friends from England, he learned that London and Liverpool wanted new symphonies and cantatas. This time he did nothing about it. When he, finally, returned in September to Leipzig, he seemed to feel better, though Moscheles, meeting him, was frightened to see how he had aged and changed. On Oct. 9, while visiting his friend, the singer Livia Frege, in connection with some Lieder he planned to publish, he was seized with a chill. He hurried home and was put to bed, tortured by violent headaches. He had planned to go to Vienna late in the month to conduct “Elijah” with Jenny Lind as the soprano. Of this there could now be no question. On Nov. 3, 1847 he suffered another stroke and lay, it is claimed, unconscious, though Ferdinand David says that, till ten in the evening, “he screamed frightfully, then made noises as if he heard the sounds of drums and trumpets.... During the following day the pains seemed to cease, but his face was that of a dying man”. Some time between 9:15 and 9:30 in the evening he ceased to breathe. He was exactly three months short of 39 years old. Grouped about the bed were his wife, his brother Paul, David, Schleinitz and Moscheles. “Through Fanny’s death our family was destroyed”, wrote Paul Mendelssohn to Klingemann; “through Felix’s, it is annihilated”! Leipzig was stunned by the news. “It is lovely weather here”, wrote a young English music student, “but an awful stillness prevails; we feel as if the king were dead....”

Posthumously, Mendelssohn’s fate seemed like a strange reversal of his supreme idol’s, Bach. Bach passed into long eclipse, then, largely through Mendelssohn’s heroic efforts, underwent a miracle of resurrection which has grown more overpowering clear down to our own time. Mendelssohn, almost preposterously famous at his death, was before very long pronounced outmoded, overrated, virtually negligible. The whole history of music scarcely shows a more violent backswing of the pendulum. To take pleasure in any but a handful of Mendelssohn’s works was for decades to lose caste, if not to invite ignominy. By 1910—just about the centenary of his birth—the low water-mark of derogation had been reached.

Now, a hundred years after his death, a most definite reaction is in progress. Is it not, rather, a salutary readjustment than a mere reaction? If Mendelssohn’s poorer works have not endured is it not better so? Struggle and suffering might, indeed, have lent a deeper undertone to his songs or enabled his adagios, in old Sir George Grove’s words, “to draw tears where now they only give a saddened pleasure. But let us take a man as we have him. Surely there is enough conflict and violence in life and in art. When we want to be made unhappy we can turn to others. It is well in these agitated modern days to be able to point to one perfectly balanced nature in whose life, whose letters and whose music alike all is at once manly and refined, clever and pure, brilliant and solid. For the enjoyment of such shining heights of goodness we may well forego for once the depths of misery and sorrow”.

And Grove’s words taken on an added poignancy precisely because they were _not_ spoken of an epoch as grievous as our own!

COMPLETE LIST OF RECORDINGS _by_ THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

COLUMBIA RECORDS

_Under the Direction of Bruno Walter_

Barber—Symphony No. 1 Beethoven—Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major (“Emperor”) (with Rudolph Serkin, piano) Beethoven—Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (“Eroica”) Beethoven—Symphony No. 5 in C minor Beethoven—Symphony No. 8 in F Major Brahms—Song of Destiny (with Westminster Choir) Dvorak—Slavonic Dance No. 1 Mahler—Symphony No. 4 in G major (with Desi Halban, soprano) Mendelssohn—Concerto in E minor (with Nathan Milstein, violin) Mendelssohn—Midsummer Night’s Dream—Scherzo (with Nathan Milstein) Mozart—Cosi Fan Tutte—Overture Mozart—Symphony No. 41 in C major (“Jupiter”), K. 551 Schubert—Symphony No. 7 in C major Schumann, R.—Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (“Rhenish”) Smetana—The Moldau (“Vltava”) Strauss, J.—Emperor Waltz

_Under the Direction of Artur Rodzinski_

Bizet—Carmen—Entr’acte (Prelude to Act III) Bizet—Symphony in C major Copland—A Lincoln Portrait (with Kenneth Spencer, Narrator) Gershwin—American in Paris Ibert—“Escales” (Ports of Call) Liszt—Mephisto Waltz Moussorgsky—Gopak (The Fair at Sorotchinski) Moussorgsky-Ravel—Pictures at an Exhibition Prokofieff—Symphony No. 5, Op. 100 Rachmaninoff—Concerto No. 2 in C minor (with Gyorgy Sandor) Rachmaninoff—Symphony No. 2 in E minor Saint-Saens—Concerto No. 4 in C minor (with Robert Casadesus) Sibelius—Symphony No. 4 in A minor Tschaikowsky—Suite “Mozartiana” Tschaikowsky—Symphony No. 6 in B minor (“Pathétique”) Wagner—Lohengrin—Bridal Chamber Scene (Act III—Scene 2) (with Helen Traubel, soprano and Kurt Baum, tenor) Wagner—Tristan und Isolde—Excerpts (with Helen Traubel, soprano) Wagner—Die Walkure—Act III (Complete) (with Helen Traubel, soprano and Herbert Janssen, baritone) Wolf-Ferrari—“Secret of Suzanne”, Overture

_Under the Direction of Igor Stravinsky_

Stravinsky—Firebird Suite Stravinsky—Fireworks (Feu d’Artifice) Stravinsky—Four Norwegian Moods Stravinsky—Le Sacre du Printemps (The Consecration of the Spring) Stravinsky—Scenes de Ballet Stravinsky—Suite from Petrouchka Stravinsky—Symphony in Three Movements

_Under the Direction of Efrem Kurtz_

Herold—Zampa—Overture Khatchaturian—Gayne—Ballet Suite Wieniawski—Violin Concerto (with Isaac Stern)

_Under the Direction of Darius Milhaud_

Milhaud—Suite Francaise

_Under the Direction of John Barbirolli_

Bach-Barbirolli—Sheep May Safely Graze (from the “Birthday Cantata”) Berlioz—Roman Carnival Overture Brahms—Symphony No. 2, in D major Brahms—Academic Festival Overture Bruch—Concerto No. 1, in G minor (with Nathan Milstein, violin) Debussy—First Rhapsody for Clarinet (with Benny Goodman, clarinet) Debussy—Petite Suite: Ballet Mozart—Concerto in B-flat major (with Robert Casadesus, piano) Mozart—Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183 Ravel—La Valse Rimsky-Korsakov—Capriccio Espagnol Sibelius—Symphony No. 1, in E minor Sibelius—Symphony No. 2, in D major Smetana—The Bartered Bride—Overture Tschaikowsky—Theme and Variations (from Suite No. 3 in G)

_Under the Direction of Sir Thomas Beecham_

Mendelssohn—Symphony No. 4, in A major (“Italian”) Sibelius—Melisande (from “Pelleas and Melisande”) Sibelius—Symphony No. 7 in C major Tschaikowsky—Capriccio Italien

_Under the Direction of Andre Kostelanetz_

Gershwin—Concerto in F (with Oscar Levant, piano)

VICTOR RECORDS

_Under the Direction of Arturo Toscanini_

Beethoven—Symphony No. 7 in A major Brahms—Variations on a Theme by Haydn Dukas—The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Gluck—Orfeo ed Euridice—Dance of the Spirits Haydn—Symphony No. 4, in D major (The Clock) Mendelssohn—Midsummer Night’s Dream—Scherzo Mozart—Symphony in D major (K. 385) Rossini—Barber of Seville—Overture Rossini—Italians in Algiers—Overture Rossini—Semiramide—Overture Verdi—Traviata—Preludes to Acts I and III Wagner—Excerpts—Lohengrin—Die Gotterdammerung—Siegfried Idyll

_Under the Direction of John Barbirolli_

Debussy—Iberia (Images, Set 3, No. 2) Purcell—Suite for Strings with Four Horns, Two Flutes, English Horn Respighi—Fountains of Rome Respighi—Old Dances and Airs (Special recording for members of the Philharmonic-Symphony League of New York) Schubert—Symphony No. 4, in C minor (Tragic) Schumann—Concerto in D minor, (with Yehudi Menuhin, violin) Tschaikowsky—Francesca de Rimini—Fantasia

_Under the Direction of Willem Mengelberg_

J. C. Bach—Arr. Stein—Sinfonia in B-flat major J. S. Bach—Arr. Mahler—Air for G string (from Suite for Orchestra) Beethoven—Egmont Overture Handel—Alcina Suite Mendelssohn—War March of the Priests (from Athalia) Meyerbeer—Prophete—Coronation March Saint-Saens—Rouet d’Omphale (Omphale’s Spinning Wheel) Schelling—Victory Ball Wagner—Flying Dutchman—Overture Wagner—Siegfried—Forest Murmurs (Waldweben)

Special Booklets published for RADIO MEMBERS of THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

POCKET-MANUAL of Musical Terms, Edited by Dr. Th. Baker (G. Schirmer’s) BEETHOVEN and his Nine Symphonies by Pitts Sanborn BRAHMS and some of his Works by Pitts Sanborn MOZART and some Masterpieces by Herbert F. Peyser WAGNER and his Music-Dramas by Robert Bagar TSCHAIKOWSKY and his Orchestral Music by Louis Biancolli JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH and a few of his major works by Herbert F. Peyser SCHUBERT and his work by Herbert F. Peyser

These booklets are available to Radio Members at 25c each while the limited supply lasts.

The immortal music of Mendelssohn is available in magnificent performances by the PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF NEW YORK

Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 (“Italian”). Conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. Set M-MM-538 $5.00[*]

Concerto in E minor for Violin & Orch. Op. 64 (with Nathan Milstein, violin) Conducted by Bruno Walter. Set M-MM-577 $5.00[*]

Scherzo (from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”). Conducted by Bruno Walter. 12145-D (in set M-577) $1.00[*]

[*]_Prices shown are exclusive of taxes_

COLUMBIA MASTERWORKS RECORDS

Transcriber’s Notes

--A few palpable typos were silently corrected.

--Illustrations were shifted to the nearest paragraph break.

--Copyright notice is from the printed exemplar. (U.S. copyright was not renewed: this ebook is in the public domain.)