| This text is excerpted from Mendelssohn and Victorian England, by Colin Eatock, published by Ashgate Press in 2009. |
| Chapter 2: The First Visit |
Altogether, the people here like me for the sake of my music, and respect me for it, and this delights me immensely, for it is nice to have got rid of a parcel of unknown strangers and turned them into pleasant acquaintances. Although Mendelssohn’s compositions were virtually unknown to the London of 1829, his reputation preceded him in musical circles. Mendelssohn was a prodigy, and prodigies tend to be noticed. And so in the half-dozen years leading up to his arrival, his achievements were discussed in both The Harmonicon and The Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review on numerous occasions. The first mention of Mendelssohn, appearing in the QMMR in the summer of 1823, was in a review of a Berlin concert on 5 December 1822, in which ‘the young Felix Mendelssohn performed a concerto, composed by himself, on the pianoforte’.1Two years later, The Harmonicon observed that Mendelssohn’s Sonata for Piano and Violin Op. 4 was ‘hailed by the amateurs of the continent as a presage of great musical excellence’.2 Other reviews followed, including a notice in July 1827 of his opera Die Hochzeit des Camacho Op. 10 in Berlin. An unnamed correspondent reported to The Harmonicon: ‘This production cannot lay claim to the title of a masterpiece, yet it is a specimen of early talent which justifies the highest hopes.’3 (Not all critics were so kind – and Mendelssohn himself considered the opera a failure, withdrawing it from the stage after just one performance.) Mendelssohn’s name preceded him in other ways as well. His grandfather, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, was known amongst English intellectuals. Although by 1829 the ‘Jewish Socrates’ had been dead for 43 years, an English-language volume entitled Memoirs of Moses Mendelssohn, the Jewish Philosopher Including the Celebrated Correspondence on the Christian Religion with I.C. Lavater, had been published in London in 1825, attracting interest in scholarly circles. Moses was famous enough for The Harmonicon to mention Felix’s connection to him on several occasions – although there was some confusion as to whether Moses was the young composer’s father, uncle or grandfather. Finally, Mendelssohn’s accomplishments as a Wunderkind were made known in London through word of mouth, thanks to three well placed men: Ignaz Moscheles, Carl Klingemann and George Smart. Moscheles had been, at least nominally, a teacher of Mendelssohn in Berlin in 1824. Thanks to Moscheles’s re-location to England the following year, Mendelssohn had an influential ally in the community of émigré musicians working in London. Indeed, it was principally at Moscheles’s suggestion that London was chosen by Felix’s father, Abraham, as the first destination in his son’s tour of Europe. Mendelssohn’s boyhood friend Klingemann, a diplomat and amateur poet, was in London, attached to the Hanoverian delegation, and was ideally situated to help Mendelssohn gain entry into aristocratic circles. And Smart, a conductor and prominent member of the Philharmonic Society, had visited Berlin in 1825 where he was impressed by Mendelssohn’s talents. He too had urged Abraham to send his son to London. From these three seeds an extensive network of friendships and associations quickly grew. Mendelssohn left the port of Hamburg on 18 April, carrying in his luggage musical scores, letters of introduction and also a touching farewell note from his older sister, Fanny – like Felix, a gifted composer and pianist. He was seen off by his father and his younger sister, Rebecka, as he boarded a steamer named the Attwood. The North Sea crossing was arduous, hampered by wind, fog and engine troubles, and it took two days for the ship to progress to the estuary of the Thames, where it anchored late on 20 April. At noon on the following day, 21 April, the Attwood finally arrived at London’s Customs House. Mendelssohn found himself plunged into an unknown environment. He was, however, already a man of the world: an experienced traveller thanks to trips with his family in Germany, and to France and Switzerland. And this smallish, slender, 20-year-old with dark features (sometimes described in England as ‘Jewish looking’) had done a great deal more besides. He had written a dozen ‘practice’ symphonies before his Symphony No. 1 – in addition to songs, choral works, solo piano music, pieces for violin and for cello with piano, three piano quartets, his Octet Op. 20, and also the overtures Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt Op. 27 and A Midsummer Night’s Dream Op. 21. If he learned the sting of failure from his ill-fated opera Die Hochzeit des Camacho in 1827, two years later he experienced the joy of triumph when he led Berlin’s Singakademie in the first performance of the St Matthew Passion since the death of J.S. Bach. The young Mendelssohn was charming, ambitious, confident and opinionated. As a musician he was a brilliant pianist and organist, a skilful violinist and an experienced conductor. Moreover, he had studied several languages (including English), painted and drew, rode horses well and was even a gymnast. He had also received thorough religious instruction – not in the faith of his Jewish ancestors, but in Christianity. At the age of seven, his parents had him baptized as a Lutheran. With Klingemann as his guide, he found his way through the streets of London to a coffee-house, where he examined a copy of The Times. In his ‘true Berlin way’, as he wrote to his family, he looked first to the theatrical news, and there found an announcement of Maria Malibran’s appearance in Rossini’s Otello that night.4 After borrowing a pair of gray stockings from Klingemann, he attended the performance at the King’s Theatre, later describing the scene in a letter to home: …a large house, entirely decorated with crimson stuff, six tiers of boxes, out of which peeped the ladies bedecked with great white feathers, chains and jewels of all kinds; an odour of pomade and perfume assails one on entering, and gave me a headache; in the pit all the gentlemen, with fresh-trimmed whiskers; the house crowded; the orchestra very good, conducted by a Signor Spagnoletti (in December I will give you an imitation of him; he is enough to make you die of laughter).5 The opera did not conclude until after midnight. As a ballet performance began, Mendelssohn left the theatre, exhausted … Notes: © Copyright Colin Eatock 2009 |