Scan 141
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians ed. by J. A. Fuller Maitland, 1907
12 lines. Read by computer on 5 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Though apparently cold in his manners, and somewhat stern in his tone, and towards the end perhaps unduly irritable, Abraham Mendelssohn was greatly beloved by his wife and children. Felix, in particular, is described as 'enthusiastically, almost fanatically, fond of him,' and the letters show how close was the confidence which existed between them. Hardly less remarkable was the mother. She was one of those rare persons whose influence seems to be almost in proportion to the absence of any attempt to exert it. Hiller when a boy saw her once, and the impression made upon him by the power of her quiet kindness and gentleness remained fresh in his mind after more than half a century. When her house was thronged with the intellect and wit of Berlin, she was the centre of the circle and the leader of the conversation. Her letters, of which large numbers exist in manuscript, are full of cleverness and character. Her practical sense of the value of money comes out in her letters to Ferdinand David. The education of her children was her great object in life. She was strict—we may now think over strict; but no one who looks at the result in the character of her children can say that her method was not a wise one. They loved her dearly to the end, and the last letters which Felix wrote to her are full of an overflowing tenderness and a natural confidential intimacy which nothing can surpass. Calm and reserved like her husband, she was full of feeling, and had on occasion bursts of passion. Felix's intention to leave Berlin affected her to a 'terrible' degree—a degree which surprised him. He confesses that his yielding to the wishes of the King, after having made up his mind to retire, was due solely to her. 'You think that in my official position I could do nothing else. It was not that. It was my mother.'
3How far she was herself a pianoforte player we are not told, but the remark which she made after Fanny's birth, 'that the child had got Bach-fugue fingers,' shows that she knew a good deal about the matter. We learn also that she herself for some time taught the two eldest children music, beginning with lessons five minutes long, and gradually increasing the time until they went through a regular course of instruction. For many years Felix and Fanny never practised or played without the mother sitting by them, knitting in hand.
5Felix was scarcely three when his family escaped to Berlin. The first definite event of which we hear after this is a visit to Paris by Joseph and Abraham in 1816, for the liquidation of the indemnity to be paid by France to Prussia on account of the war. Abraham took his family with him, and Felix and Fanny, then seven and eleven respectively, were taught the piano by Madame Bigot, a remarkable musician, and apparently an excellent teacher. She was the daughter of a Madame Kiéné, and in 1816 was thirty years old. Miniatures of the four children were taken during this visit, which are still in existence. Soon after their return from Paris to the grandmother's house at the Neue Promenade, where the family still lived, the children's education seems to have begun systematically. Heyse was their tutor for general subjects, Ludwig Berger for the piano, Zelter for thorough-bass and composition, Henning for the violin, and Rösel for landscape. Felix learned Greek with Rebecka, two years his junior, and advanced as far as Aeschylus.
7On Oct. 28, 1818, he made his first appearance in public at a concert given by a certain Herr Gugel, in which he played the pianoforte part of a Trio for pianoforte and two horns by Woelfl, and was much applauded. The children were kept very closely to their lessons, and Felix is remembered in after-life to have said how much they enjoyed their Sundays, because then they were not forced to get up at 5 o'clock to work. Early in his eleventh year, on April 11, 1819, he entered the singing-class of the Singakademie as an alto, for the Friday practisings. There and elsewhere 'he took his place,' says Devrient, 'amongst the grown-up people in his child's dress, a tight-fitting jacket, cut very low at the neck, over which the wide trousers were buttoned, into the slanting pockets of these the little fellow liked to thrust his hands, rocking his curly head [he had long brown curls] from side to side, and shifting restlessly from one foot to the other.'
9With 1820, that is to say with his twelfth year, Felix seems to have begun systematically to compose; at least with that year begins the invaluable series of forty-four volumes, in which Mendelssohn's methodical habits have preserved a collection of autographs or copies of a great part of his works, published and unpublished, down to the time of his death, the majority carefully inscribed with both date and place—which are now deposited in the Royal Library at Berlin.
11To the year 1820 are attributable between fifty and sixty movements, including amongst them a Trio for pf. and strings (three movements); a Sonata in F for pf. and violin (three do.); two movements in D minor for the same; two full Sonatas for pf. solo; the beginning of a third in G minor, finished the next year, and published in 1868 (as op. 105); six pieces for pf. solo; three pieces for the same instrument, four hands; four pieces for organ; three songs; two part-songs for men's voices; a cantata, 'In
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.