e _Gewandhaus_ concerts and superintended the
entire educational operations of the school. In addition to this he
conducted a succession of important festivals in all parts of Europe,
producing new works of his own, and the greatest works of the masters
before him. He made a great reputation as concert pianist, playing his
own concertos and those of Beethoven, as well as the _Concertstueck_ of
Von Weber. Everywhere he improvised upon the organ or the piano, and
through all the admiration which he received remained the same simple,
unaffected, sincere artist that he was when a boy. His home life was
very happy. In Ferdinand Hiller's reminiscences many charming pictures
of it are given.

The greatest of Mendelssohn's works was "Elijah," which was produced
at Birmingham, August 26, 1846. Staudigl, the famous baritone of
Vienna, was Elijah. The work went extremely well at the first
performance--better, Mendelssohn says, than any former work of his.
The continual anxiety of producing the new work, the travel and the
many responsibilities belonging to his position finally undermined
his health, and at length, November 4, 1847, he died at Leipsic. It is
doubtful whether any musician ever left a warmer or a more
distinguished circle of friends than Mendelssohn. In all parts of the
musical world his death was regarded as a calamity.

[Illustration: Fig. 86.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.]

In "Elijah" and in the first part of "St. Paul" Mendelssohn made an
addition to the world's stock of oratorios scarcely second to any
other works, excepting Haendel's "Messiah." "Elijah," in particular,
had the advantage of an extremely dramatic and picturesque story, and
a text well selected from the Scriptures. There are many moments in
this work of rare and exquisite beauty. The choruses when
contrapuntally developed, have themes somewhat too short, whereby the
effect of the words is lost in the intermingling of voices coming in
at later moments, but there are other parts of the work which are
extremely beautiful. There is a lovely chorus, "He Watching over
Israel," in which the gentle Mendelssohnian melody is accompanied by
soft triplets in the strings, whereby a most delightfully light and
_spirituelle_ effect is produced. Near the end of the work there is a
very graphic recitative to the words, "And One Cherub Cried to
Another"; then a soprano voice with grand phrase sings "Holy, Holy Is
God, the Lord," three other soprano voices joi