RECOLLECTIONS OF MENDELSSOHN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2482, 24 May 1909, Page 8

RECOLLECTIONS OF MENDELSSOHN.

(By His Godson, Felix Moscheles.)

Next to knowing and talking with a , great man, we like to have the privilege of talking with someone who knew him; someone who can tell us about him, how , he looked and spoke and dressed and worked, with all those details that we love , .concerning peculiarities and tricks of manner that endeared the great one to his circle of friends. . It was perhaps natural, then —considered as a kind of aftermath to the celebrations of the centenary of the birth of Mendelssohn —that the great composers godson, Mr Felix Moscheles, the well-known artist, should be appealed to for his reminiscences. A London Daily Chronicle representative found Mr Moscheles at his house in Chelsea, surrounded by a number of valuable Mendelssohn manuscripts and objects of art and interest. Mr Moscheles explained at the outset that what he had to say “has reference to myself and to my father and mother, who in my memory occupy the position of the alter ego. It is only from such a personal standpoint that I can speak ol Felix Mendelssohn at all. All I can do is to hark back to the days of my boyhood and to give you a sketch of some of my earliest impressions; and I may consider myself fortunate if I do not find myself remembering things that happened before I was born, for Mendelssohn, and what he said and did, was such a constant theme of conversation in family that I grew up knowing my parents’ friend nearly as well as they did themselves. ‘•yiv father was Igiiaz Moscheles, the composer and pianist, who was born in Prague in 1794. He studied in \ ientia 111 the days of Beethoven, whom he knew personally, and whose mighty genius impressed him from the first. He could, however, only study the master’s works in secret, for Dionys Weber, who had undertaken his musical education for three years, had threatened that he would have nothing more to do with him if he ever caught him playing any of ‘that fe'low Beethoven’s’ music. •‘ln 1824 my father settled in London, and his house soon formed an attractive centre where music and musicians played a prominent part, and where also men and women distinguished in various lines of life frequently met. It became a second home to Mendelssohn on his fitquent visits to London. He was ever a welcome guest, coming and going as he liked, and generally considering himself as one of the family. Moscheles had been made quite as much at homo in Mendeissohn’s family when ho spent six weeks in Berlin. Felix’s father, Abraham Mendelssohn, was a wealthy banker and a man of refined taste and culture. “The Mendelssohn home in Leipsigerstrasse must have been an ideal borne, and in more than one letter my father bears testimony to the attractions of the family circle and to the admirable qualities of voting Felix’s parents. ‘They ghe me the impression,’ he says, ‘of people of the highest culture, far from over proud ot their children; indeed, anxious about Felix’s future, asking themselves whether his gifts are lasting and will lead to something solid and permanent or whether he may 0 not suddenly collapse like so many other gifted children.’ “But Mine. Mendelssohn lost no opportunity of developing their talent. She writes asking my father to give young Felix and his sister some lessons, and adds, ‘Please do not set down these repeated requests to indiscretion, but attribute them solely to the wish that our children should he enabled to profit by the presence of the prince des pianistes.’ For a short time Mendelssohn, then in his fifteenth year, became his pupil, but my father was from the first well aware that he was, as he notes in his diary, sitting next to a master, not a pupil.’ Boon the relative positions of teacher and pupil were exchanged for friendship of a lasting character. •‘When Mendelssohn was nineteen he was to see the world, and he sought my father’s advice as to the order in which lie should take the various countries he desired to visit, and the reply being in favor of beginning with England Mendelssohn arrived in London in April, 1829. He was at once taken in hand by the • Moscheles. My father made a round of calls with him) introducing him to Chappell, Cramer, Collard, and other friends. Mv mother set herself the pleasant task of“ helping him in social intercourse according to the metropolis. She would cal herself his grandmother, and iie would submissively and gratefully appreciate her grandmotherly solicitude. “She must have had a watchful eye on Ids dress, too, as is testified by a sketch he made commemorating a certain large cravat she had given him and which in his hands proved unmanageable, until she pronounced the magic words ‘Pin it up ! An! lest that cabalistic formula should be lost to jKMterity, he appends it to the sketch. This adopted grandmother of Ins was at that time twenty-four years of age ; that is live years his senior. . “Before he was comfortably installed in rooms at 103, Great Portland-stieet, there had been some correspondence concerning the compositions he should bring over with him, and it is curious to note a passage in which ho asks, ‘Shall I be able to pass the Custom House without difficulty' In that case 1 would bring some of my compositions and submit them- to your judgment previous tcv making a selection.’ "Mendelssohn once very pointedly showed his dislike to a Miss F., an Irish girl, who was studying at the Conservatoire in Leipsic. I think he was prejudiced against her because she had a mass of fluffy, reddish hair, which would break away from the rule of the hairpin and escape in a spirit of rebellion. Just the sort of thing we admire nowadays but that was thought positively improper then. “I have various drawings by Mendelssohn, among others a humorous illustiation of some of my father s works, made for his birthday in 1832. ‘The writing, he says, ‘is the work of Emily Moscheles, the poem is by Karl Klingemann, the arabesques areinvented, and the inkblots executed by Felix Mend. Bartholdy. “I have also the M.S. of that most popular work of Mendelssohn’s, the first book of ‘Songs without Words.’ He first named it ‘Melodies for the ‘Pianoforte.’ At his request my father found a publisher for him, and foreseeing that it might become valuable property, had made an arrangement according to which Mendelssohn was to receive a royalty on each copy. The young composer wrote, thanking my father for his help, and added: ‘The work will certainly go through twenty editions, and with the proceeds I shall buy the house, No. 2, Chester-place, a seat in the House of Commons, and become a Radical, by profession. His ambitions were not realised, for JfovelloVj books showed that Mendelssohn received £4 16s. as royalties on forty-eight copies. Four years after publication only 114 copies had been discalled Felix, after Mendelssohn. A very characteristic letter is one Mendelssohn wrote congratulating my parents on my birthday. He heads it with a pen and ink drawing of all the instruments of the orchestra, and says:— . “ ‘Dear Moscheles, —Here they are, wind instruments and fiddles, for the son and heir must not bo kept waiting until I come. He must have a cradle with drums and trumpets and janissary music; fiddles alone are not lively enough. May every • happiness and joy and blessing attend the little stranger. May he be prosperous, may he do well whatever he does, and may it fare well with him in the world. “‘So he is to he called Felix, is he? How nice and kind of you to make him my god-child and forma! The first present his god-father makes him is the above complete orchestra. It is to accom-

pany him through life—the trumpet when he wishes to become famous, tho flute when ho falls in love, the cymbals when

he grows a beard, the pianoforte explains itself; and should people ever play him •false, as will happen to the best of us,

there stands the kettle-drums and the big drum in the background.’ “What was Mendelssohn like in his personal appearance? Well, I am often surprised when I realise that he was short of stature. To me, the small boy, he appeared very tall. To me he was the man who could throw a ball farther than anybody else I knew, and could run faster, too; but then, to be sure, I could catch him. A golden thread of fun ran through his life, and ho brought sunshine wherever he went. “I come now to the 9th of October, a day I can never forget, when Mendelssohn paid his hist visit to us. From our windows wo saw him walking slowly and languidly through the garden towards our house. He left us about one o’clock in the most cheerful mood. The same^ afternoon he was taken ill in Mme Frege’s house He had gone there to persuade her to sing in his ‘Elijah,’ which had as yet only been produced in England and was now 1 to be heard in Leipzic. “Prom the Ist of November we knew that the worst was to be feared. Ho 'gradually began to sink from two o’clock m ‘the afternoon, at the hour when another paralytic stroke was dreadea. He lay perfectly quiet breathing heavily, and at length we were informed that he was no more.”