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This time the selection was from Mendelssohn and a soprano voice began alone: "Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove! Far away, far away would I rove!" Clear, pure and true, the sweet voice floated through the church. With dramatic sympathy it yielded to the spirit of the melody and the pathos of the words. It touched hearts with a sense of undefined sorrow and longing.
Chopin was the pianoforte genius par excellence, and in his field he stands above the greatest of the German composers, whatever their names. Mendelssohn once wrote to his mother that Chopin "produces effects on the piano as novel as those of Paganini on the violin, and he performs marvels which no one would have believed to be possible."
John, and the Mass in B Minor. It was the Passion according to St. Matthew that Mendelssohn, about a hundred years later discovered, studied with so much zeal, and performed in Berlin, with so much devotion and success. Bach always preferred a life of quiet and retirement; simplicity had ever been his chief characteristic.
Had Mendel's zeal ended here he would have avoided much subsequent difficulty, but he was well aware that the Jews had not attained to the ideal he had formed, that much ignorance, fanaticism and superstition still prevailed. He desired to imitate the example of his great prototype, Moses Mendelssohn, and spread the light of learning throughout the Jewish world.
Frau Dirichlet, the wife of the great mathematician, the sister of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, in whose social and musical home I spent hours of pleasure which will never be forgotten, also expressed her anxiety about my loss of flesh. When a girl she had often met my mother, and at my first visit she won my affection by her eager praise of that beloved woman's charms.
It was said of Mendelssohn that music was the accident of his being; and there are many of whom the same could be said, with this meaning i.e., that the powers which make them succeed in music would enable them to succeed in other great things if attempted.
From these circumstances Mendelssohn derived not only the advantage of having the grant kept a secret, but also the satisfaction of allowing his friends to applaud him as a model of self-sacrificing zeal for going to Leipzig; which they could easily do, although they knew him to be in a good financial position.
She was the ideal woman, artist and teacher who remained in active service until a short time before her death, in 1896. Those were charmed days in Leipsic when the Schumanns and Mendelssohn formed the centre of an enthusiastic circle of musicians, and created a far-reaching musical atmosphere.
Domestic Concerts are got up to gratify her: a Miss Fredericks: good old English name. Mr. Radnor calls his daughter, Freddy; so Mr. Taplow, the architect, says. They are for modern music and ancient. Tannhauser, Wagner, you see. Pergolese. Flute-duet, Mercadante. Here we have him! O Durandarte: Air Basque, variations his own. Again, Senor Durandarte, Mendelssohn.
Mendelssohn, in a letter to Zelter on the Palestrina music as heard in the Sistine chapel, says that nothing could exceed the effect of the blending of the voices, the prolonged tones gradually merging from one note and chord to another, softly swelling, decreasing, at last dying out.
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