Project Gutenberg's A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, by George Sampson

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Title: A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Author: George Sampson

Release Date: July 9, 2009 [EBook #29361]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

[Illustration: _Painting by N. M. Price._ FIRST WALPURGIS NIGHT.
"Through the night-gloom lead and follow
In and out each rocky hollow."]

A DAY WITH FELIX
MENDELSSOHN
BARTHOLDY

BY GEORGE SAMPSON

HODDER & STOUGHTON

_In the same Series._
_Beethoven._
_Schubert._

A DAY WITH MENDELSSOHN.

During the year 1840 I visited Leipzig with letters of introduction from
Herr Klingemann of the Hanoverian Legation in London. I was a singer,
young, enthusiastic, and eager--as some singers unfortunately are
not--to be a musician as well. Klingemann had many friends among the
famous German composers, because of his personal charm, and because his
simple verses had provided them with excellent material for the sweet
little songs the Germans love so well. I need scarcely say that the man
I most desired to meet in Leipzig was Mendelssohn; and so, armed
with Klingemann's letter, I eagerly went to his residence--a quiet,
well-appointed house near the Promenade. I was admitted without delay,
and shown into the composer's room. It was plainly a musician's
work-room, yet it had a note of elegance that surprised me. Musicians
are not a tidy race; but here there was none of the admired disorder
that one instinctively associates with an artist's sanctum. There was no
litter. The well-used pianoforte could be approached without circuitous
negotiation of a rampart of books and papers, and the chairs were free
from encumbrances. On a table stood some large sketch-books, one open
at a page containing an excellent landscape drawing; and other spirited
sketches hung framed upon the walls. The abundant music paper was perhaps
the most strangely tidy feature of the room, for the exquisitely neat
nota