Mendelssohn: A Life in Music Read online

  MENDELSSOHN: A LIFE IN MUSIC

  Pencil portrait of Felix by Wilhelm von Schadow, April 1834.

  Mendelssohn

  A Life in Music

  R. Larry Todd

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  Copyright © 2003 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

  Data is available

  ISBN 0-19-511043-9

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  on acid-free paper

  To Karin

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Acknowledgments

  Genealogical Tree of the Itzig and Mendelssohn Families

  Map: Principal Sites of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Travels

  Preface

  Prologue

  Porcelain Monkeys and Family Identities

  Part I: Precocious Deeds

  1 In Nebel und Nacht : Hamburg to Berlin (1809–1819)

  2 Apprenticed Prodigy (1820–1821)

  3 The Second Mozart (1821–1822)

  4 From Apprentice to Journeyman (1823–1824)

  5 The Prodigy’s Voice (1825–1826)

  6 In the Public Eye (1827–1829)

  Part II: The Road to Damascus

  7 Amateur Gentleman (1829)

  8 Wanderlust (1830–1832)

  9 Düsseldorf Beginnings (1832–1835)

  10 The Apostle’s Voice (1835–1837)

  Part III: Elijah’s Chariot

  11 Musical Biedermeier (1837–1839)

  12 Leipzig vs . Berlin (1840–1841)

  13 From Kapellmeister to Generalmusikdirektor (1841–1842)

  14 Portrait of a Prussian Musician (1843–1844)

  15 The Noon of Fame: Years of Triumph (1844–1846)

  16 The Prophet’s Voice: Elijah’s Chariot (1846–1847)

  Abbreviations

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index of Mendelssohn’s Works

  General Index

  Illustrations

  Illustrations appear following p. 222

  Frontispiece. Wilhelm von Schadow, pencil portrait of Felix, April 1834. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv, MA BA 135 (see p. 292 ); autograph signature, letter of June 27, 1844, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

  1. Moritz Oppenheim, Lavater and Lessing Visit Moses Mendelssohn , 1856. The Collection of The Judah L. Magnes Museum, San Francisco, California (see p. 8 )

  2. Monkey figurine, from the estate of Moses Mendelssohn. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv, MA Depos. MG Fot 5 (see p. 5 )

  3. Portraits of Felix and his siblings (1816), showing Fanny (age 11), Felix (7), Paul (4), and Rebecka (5). The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS. Eng. c. 2269, fols. 1–4 (see p. 32 )

  4. Karl Begas, oil sketch of Felix (1821). The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, M. Deneke Mendelssohn e. 5 (see p. 75 )

  5. Felix’s pen-and-ink drawing of Grindelwald Glacier, August 27, 1822. The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, M. Deneke Mendelssohn c. 5, fol. 17 (see p. 100 )

  6. Wilhelm Hensel, pencil drawing of Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy as Cecilia, patron saint of music, 1822. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv, MA BA 188, 7 (see p. 103 )

  7. Autograph of the Double Piano Concerto in A ♭ major (1824). Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv, Mus. Ms. autogr. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy 14, p. 3 (see p. 132 )

  8. Leipzigerstrasse No. 3, Berlin, as it appeared ca. 1890. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv, MA BA 400, 1 (see p. 137 )

  9. Felix’s drawing of Durham Cathedral, July 24, 1829. The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, M. Deneke Mendelssohn d. 2, fol. 10 (see p. 213 )

  10. Felix’s drawing Ein Blick auf die Hebriden , showing Dunollie Castle, Oban, and a view of Mull, August 7, 1829. The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, M. Deneke Mendelssohn d. 2, fol. 28 (see p. 215 )

  11. Felix’s watercolor of Amalfi, November 1836 (from a sketch of May 1831). The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, M. Deneke Mendelssohn c. 21, fol. 123 (see pp. 245 and 329 )

  12. Felix’s honorary doctorate, University of Leipzig, March 1836. The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, M. Deneke Mendelssohn a. 1 (Roll), No. 2 (see p. 315 )

  13. Philipp Veit, pencil drawing of Cécile Jeanrenaud, undated. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv, MA BA 132 (see p. 317 )

  14. Felix’s drawing of Birmingham, September 1840. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv, Mus. Ms. autogr. S10 (Album Emily Moscheles), fol. 31 (see p. 403 )

  15. Felix’s drawing of a domestic scene, September 23, 1844. The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, M. Deneke Mendelssohn d. 11, fol. 13 (see p. 483 )

  16. Felix’s final residence on the Königstrasse (now Goldschmidtstrasse) in Leipzig, where his family moved in 1845. Internationale Mendelssohn-Stiftung e. V., Leipzig (see p. 499 )

  17. Final autograph page of the full score of Elijah , dated in Leipzig on August 11, 1846. Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska (olim Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek), Mendelssohn Nachlass 51, fol. 189 (see p. 522 )

  18. Wilhelm Hensel, portrait of Fanny, 1847. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv, MA BA 44 (see p. 542 )

  19. Felix’s watercolor of Lucerne, July 2, 1847. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv, MA BA 6 (see p. 558 )

  20. Wilhelm Hensel, sketch of Felix’s deathbed, November 6, 1847. The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, M. Deneke Mendelssohn b. 1 (see p. 567 )

  Acknowledgments

  The present volume owes much to the collective wisdom of many Mendelssohnians and friends to whom I remain greatly indebted. Several scholars, including John Daverio (news of whose tragic passing arrived during the book’s production), Stephen Hefling, Wm. A. Little, Nancy Reich, Jeffrey Sposato, and James Yoch, Jr., reviewed the manuscript and offered a host of helpful suggestions and refinements. At the Bodleian Library, Peter Ward Jones not only answered endless queries about the M. Deneke Mendelssohn Collection but generously read the entire manuscript and provided a thorough commentary. The volume is much improved for his counsel and fine eye for detail, and for his impeccable Mendelssohnian sleuthing and valued friendship over the years. My students in a Mendelssohn Seminar at Duke University (2002), including Lily Hirsch, Joyce Kurpiers, Jeff Palenik, and Amy Tabb, were among the first to read and to respond critically to the manuscript.

  The expert staff at Oxford University Press, includi
ng my editors, Kimberly Robinson and Helen Mules, and copyeditor, Mary Sutherland, greatly facilitated the production of the volume. The determined patience and quiet persistence of Maribeth Anderson Payne, formerly of OUP, convinced me in 1996 to undertake the biography; she offered much appreciated advice along the way. To Mark Faris, of Duke University, I owe a sizable debt for designing and generating the musical examples; and to my friend, J. Samuel Hammond (Special Collections, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University) an earnest thank you for discharging in timely fashion the daunting task of producing the indices, and for detecting numerous, seemingly intractable infelicities in the prose. I am grateful as well to John Druesedow and his able, nimble staff at the Duke Music Library, including Patricia A. Canovai, for bibliographical assistance of various kinds.

  The offices of William H. Chafe and Karla F. Holloway (Dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, and Dean of Humanities, Duke University) granted research funds and a sabbatical leave that provided the quietude necessary for completing the volume, and I thank them for their support. To my patient colleagues in the Department of Music at Duke, who have borne with equanimity any number of conversations at our common lunch table that turned inexplicably toward the topic of Mendelssohn, a collective thank you.

  Several institutions have generously granted permission to publish illustrations and/or provided microfilms of documents, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge them here: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz mit Mendelssohn Archiv and Cécile Lowenthal-Hensel (Berlin); Duke University, Durham; Biblioteca Jagiellońska, Kraków; Internationale Mendelssohn-Stiftung, Leipzig; Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig; British Library, London; The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; New York Public Library; Bodleian Library, Oxford; The Judah L. Magnes Museum, San Francisco; Stiftelsen Musikkulturens Framjände, Stockholm; and Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. And, over the years, many “Feliciens” and colleagues have generously shared their work, contributed ideas that have shaped positively the writing of this book, and speeded its completion in manifold ways. Though I cannot possibly acknowledge them all here, I would like to thank Clive Brown (Leeds), Anne Elliott (Birmingham), Rudolf Elvers (Berlin), Jürgen Ernst (Leipzig), David Evans (Bangor), John Gough (Birmingham), Christoph Hellmundt (Leipzig), Christopher Hogwood (Cambridge), Hiromi Hoshino (Tokyo), Hans-Günter Klein (Berlin), Friedhelm Krummacher (Kiel), Veronika Leggewie (Coblenz), Roger Nichols (London), Christian Martin Schmidt (Berlin), Thomas Schmidt-Beste (Heidelberg), Françoise Tillard (Paris), Ralf Wehner (Leipzig), and Pietro Zappalà (Pavia), and, in the United States, Leon Botstein, David Brodbeck, Camilla Cai, Elizabeth Cason, Anna Celenza, Michael Cooper, Harry Davidson, Bryan Gilliam, Monika Hennemann, Stephen Jaffe, Stephan Lindeman, Scott Lindroth, Peter Mercer-Taylor, Donald Mintz, Jairo Moreno, Elizabeth Paley, Robert Parkins, Anne Parks, Siegwart Reichwald, Douglass Seaton, J. Rigbie Turner, Sean Wallace, and Marian Wilson Kimber. More specific intellectual debts are recorded in the notes.

  To James Bland, a warm thank you for his friendship, on and off the court. And finally, to my family, the greatest debt of all—for several years, they have suffered with good humor the daily vagaries of a biographer, and the music historian’s “folly”—chasing the ever receding, chimerical musical past. To my daughter, Anna, may she grow up in a world yet touched by musicians of genius such as Mendelssohn. And to my wife, Karin, whose enduring love and encouragement inform every page that follows, this book is dedicated in heartfelt gratitude.

  The Itzig Family

  The Mendelssohn Family

  Preface

  In the one hundred and fifty-six years since the composer’s death in 1847, history has rediscovered Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy numerous times, with radically different results. Etched into our collective musical consciousness are several vivid images of the man and musician. He was a prodigious polymath/polyglot whose intellectual horizons—embracing music, drawing, painting, poetry, classical studies, and theology—were second to none among the “great” composers, and whose musical precocity, not just in composition but also conducting, piano and organ, violin and viola, was rivaled only by Mozart. Mendelssohn was among the first conductors to adopt the baton and to develop systematic rehearsal techniques that advanced the fledgling art of conducting as an independent discipline. He ranked among the very foremost piano virtuosi of his time and performed feats of extemporization legendary already during his lifetime; in addition, he was probably the most distinguished organist of the century. He was the “prime mover” in the Bach Revival, the stimulating agent behind the posthumous canonization of the Thomaskantor. Mendelssohn was the restorer of the oratorio, who produced two examples judged worthy of Handel: St. Paul (1836), which scored early international successes in Germany, England, Denmark, Holland, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States; and, second only to Handel’s Messiah, Elijah (1846), premiered in Birmingham, England, and performed at every triennial musical festival there until the demise of the institution at the outbreak of World War I. 1 Mendelssohn was a versatile, craftsmanlike composer whose work effortlessly mediated between the poles of classicism and romanticism, and he convinced Robert Schumann to label him the Mozart of the nineteenth century. Mendelssohn composed several undisputed masterpieces still in the standard repertoire—the Octet and Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture (created when he was sixteen and seventeen), the hauntingly ineffable Hebrides Overture and radiant Italian Symphony, and the Violin Concerto, the elegiac opening theme of which spawned several imitations.

  But balancing these appraisals are commonplaces of a different cast. Mendelssohn was a musician whose delicate “parlor-room” Lieder ohne Worte betrayed a proclivity toward the saccharine, whose exploration of a diaphanous musical fairyland in the Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, the Scherzo of the Octet and other works revealed a sentimental, effeminate nature. He was a composer of conservative tastes in pre-Revolution Germany who relied excessively on rhythmically predictable melodies with square-cut, symmetrical phrases. His treatment of harmony and tonality offered few innovations. By and large he adhered to classical blueprints and traditional, academic counterpoint, and was by nature a “dry” formalist. His Bach obsession led Mendelssohn, in Berlioz’s view, to be too fond of the music of the dead. In the final analysis, Mendelssohn’s music evinced a “pretty” elegance and superficiality that could not withstand the weightier “profundity” of Beethoven and Wagner, between whom the winsome Mendelssohn interloped as a “beautiful interlude” (schöner Zwischenfall ) in nineteenth-century music. 2

  Of the major Western canonical composers, Mendelssohn’s posthumous reception traced an especially wayward, volatile course, subject to the pendulum swings of musical fashion. In contrast to Austro-German musicians such as J. S. Bach, Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Bruckner, whose posthumous careers described ascending courses toward recognized “greatness,” Felix was canonized by his contemporaries during his lifetime, when, as the preeminent German composer of the 1830s and 1840s, he dominated a German-English musical axis connecting Leipzig and London. After his unexpected death at age thirty-eight, his reputation suffered two seemingly irremediable blows, first from Richard Wagner’s anti-Semitic critique at mid-century, then from the reaction against the Victorian age near the turn to the twentieth century. As a composer of Jewish descent and an intimate of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Felix proved an irresistible target; his stature diminished rapidly, so that through much of the twentieth century there was little doubt that, his versatile talents notwithstanding, he had not attained the level of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Wagner.

  And so, a hundred years after a lionized Mendelssohn had mixed freely among the European cultured elite, the Nazis summarily de-canonized the composer and banned his music. By 1934 German performances of Mendelssohn were nearly fleeting memories. On the night of November 9, 1936, the composer’s statue, installed before the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1892 by Werner Stein, was torn down and replaced by flowerbeds.
Sir Thomas Beecham, touring in Leipzig with the London Philharmonic, had visited the site the day before and returned with a delegation of musicians to lay a wreath, only to encounter the eerie absence of the statue. 3 Two years later, at the end of 1938, the Mendelssohn firm, for generations a preeminent German banking house and symbol of the family prestige, was liquidated. 4 The Nazis’ attempts to destroy Mendelssohn’s legacy, though ruthless and thorough, were not completely successful. Thus, the popular incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream , commonly used in German productions of the play, proved difficult to extirpate. When, in 1934, Party officials approached several “Aryan” composers to write new music for the play, Richard Strauss, 5 Hans Pfitzner, and Werner Egk refused, and Carl Orff’s attempt in 1938 to produce a score that spared his listeners Mendelssohn’s “moonlight with sugar water” ultimately failed; in 1944, an Allied bombing raid destroyed the opera house in Frankfurt where it was to have had its premiere. Meanwhile, the emigré Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold had arrived in Hollywood in 1934 to work on the score for Max Reinhardt’s film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), featuring remarkable special effects for the elves and a singular cast with Mickey Rooney as Puck, James Cagney as Bottom, and Olivia de Haviland as Hermia. Korngold drew heavily upon Mendelssohn’s own overture and incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream , and he supplemented these obvious sources with liberal quotations from Mendelssohn’s other works to produce a cinematic celebration of his music. Korngold averred that Mendelssohn would outlive Hitler. 6