Which direction should I go?
Pastor Julius Schubring is considered to be the librettist for Elijah. Mendelssohn also brought his own ideas about Elijah to the table as well.
Selected Letters of Mendelssohn/Letter 21 retrieved 13 August 2020 from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_letters_of_Mendelssohn/Letter_21
TO PASTOR JULIUS SCRUBRING AT DESSAU.
Leipsic, 2nd November, 1838.
Dear Schubring,—Many thanks indeed for your letter and the packet that followed it. You offer me a most essential service, for which I am very grateful; yet you ask if I desire it! I should have told you that the notes I sent were not designed for a completed plan, but only for a collection of material; however, when you have put them together, you leave me nothing to do but only to add the music. I agree that the passage about the widow should go out, also the raven, and that all the beginning should be brought more together so as to expand in the chief passages as one wants it to do. I earnestly beg you, if your time and convenience permit, to continue the first part and send it me—(it will have to be very long)—starting from the point at which your last contribution stopped; do so and you will earn my truest gratitude.
You say that at first you saw nothing to cut out, but then a light suddenly broke on you. For my own part, what struck me was to make Elijah a prophet through and through, the man we may really need to-day—a man strong and zealous, full of bitterness and scorn, the antagonist of the rabble, whether of courtiers or populace, well nigh the antagonist of all the world, yet borne aloft as on the wings of angels. Did that strike you also, and how came you to think of it? My object is to make the story dramatic; as you say, the epic style of narrative cannot come into it. That you look for the universal significance which goes to one’s heart in the Biblical words pleases me much: one thing I might say, which is that the dramatic element should here and there be very pregnantly and forcibly apparent. Speech and retort, question and answer, interruption of one speaker by another, all these and similar points are wanted. It is not that I object to Elijah being made first to speak of the assembly of the people, then immediately to the assembly; such a freedom is, of course, among the privileges of the oratorio; but in this mode of presentation I would gladly see as much naturalness as possible. Thus it puts me out that Elijah should only answer in ‘number 18’ to Ahab’s words in ‘16’ with several speeches and a chorus placed between. I would have liked a vigorous piece of dialogue there, etc. But on these points we shall very soon agree, only remember this if you can, in working further. With many thanks for your kindness.—Always yours,
Felix M. B.
Pastor Schubring was a dear friend as we can see from a letter sent a few years earlier upon the death of Mendelssohn's father:
Selected Letters of Mendelssohn/Letter 19 retrieved 13 August 2020 from: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_letters_of_Mendelssohn/Letter_19
TO PASTOR SCHUBRING AT DESSAU.
Leipsic, 6th December, 1835.[1]
Dear Schubring,—You no doubt know already what a heavy blow has fallen on the happiness of my life and on all who belong to me. It is the greatest misfortune possible; I must either endure it or sink under it. I say this now after three weeks; the keen pain of the first days is over, but I feel it only more assuredly; a new life must begin for me from this time, or all come to an end; the old life is torn away. It is our comfort and example that mother should be able to bear the loss with a wonderful quiet and steadfastness. She finds joy in her children and grandchildren, and thus tries to conceal from herself the blank which nothing can fill up. My sisters are doing everything to repay our debt to her, and give themselves up to this the more because it is so hard. I was ten days in Berlin, so that with my presence our mother might be surrounded by all that remains of our family, but what days those were I need not tell you. You understand well, and, I doubt not, have thought of me in this time of darkness. God granted my father’s often repeated petition; his end was as tranquil and gentle, and as unexpected in its rapidity as he had desired. On Wednesday, the 18th, we were all of us round him; late in the evening he went to bed; the next morning he complained a little; at half-past ten his life was ended. The doctors could give no name to his illness. My uncle says that my grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn died precisely in the same way, at the same age, and without illness, his mind bright and tranquil. I cannot say if you knew how especially good my father was to me of late years, how like a friend, so that my whole soul hung on him, and scarcely an hour of my long absence passed without bringing the thought of him into my mind. But you knew him in his own circle and knew how lovable was his character; you will realise what my feelings are. All that remains is duty, and I seek to do it with all my power, for that is what he would desire were he still present with us, and I shall not cease to struggle after what would content him, though the sight of his contentment is granted me no longer. In postponing a reply to your letter, I never thought I should have to answer thus: accept my thanks for it and for all your friendship. One passage for "St. Paul” is admirable: “Der Du der rechte Vater bist.” A chorus for it has been in my mind, and I shall write it very shortly. My especial aim is now to set about the completion of the “St. Paul” with double zeal, for my father’s last letter urged me to it. He awaited the finishing of this work with impatience, so it is to me as though I must throw myself into making the “St. Paul” as perfect as I can, and thus think he has still a share in it. If suggestions occur to you, pray continue to send them. You know how the work has shaped itself. To-day I have been writing at it again for the first time, and shall now do so daily. When it is finished, Heaven direct my further steps. Farewell, dear Schubring, and remember me.
Yours,
Felix Mendlessohn Bartholdy.
Mendelssohn's thoughts in the following letter, although written concerning his earlier oratorio, St Paul, reveal thoughts about how "preachy" his libretto, and from thence his music, should be.
Selected Letters of Mendelssohn/Letter 16 retrieved 13 August 2020 from: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_letters_of_Mendelssohn/Letter_16
TO PASTOR SCHUBRING AT DESSAU.
Düsseldorf, 15th July, 1834.
Dear Schubring,—I have owed you a letter for almost a year. It is no use to begin with excuses; I am too hopelessly in the wrong, and should never get to the end of my apologies. Indeed, I couldn’t explain how the delay came about. On establishing myself here last autumn I got your letter with your notes for the “St. Paul;” they were the best contributions I had received, and that same afternoon I set to and thought it over seriously. I took a Bible, and sitting down amid all the confusion of my study, soon got so deep in it that I could hardly force myself to go on with other work which was bound to be completed first. I was on the point of writing then to give you my heartiest thanks, but then it struck me it would be pleasanter if I could say the thing had been already commenced, and when I really did begin it in the spring the manifold cares of composition sprang up to distract me. But now I cannot content myself with thinking of you, but must write to ask about yourself and your family. That the latter has increased I know, only was it quite right of you not to let me have a word on the subject, or even a bit of paste-board, but to leave me to the chance of a roundabout piece of information? Though I confess, indeed, I deserved this thoroughly, yet a preacher, as you are, is the last person who should exact vengeance, or bear malice against his enemy. Please don’t do so now, but let me hear from you again.
Your notes for the “St. Paul” were admirable; I have made use of them all without exception. It is a curious thing, and a good one, that in all the passages I formerly wanted to invert or alter for the sake of the composition, I have time after time had to restore the precise text of the Bible; it is the best in the end. Half the first part is now ready; I hope to end it by Autumn and to complete the whole about February. But how are things going at Dessau? It would be pleasant to hear they remained just as they were. I do hope you still keep your cheerfulness and love of life, still play the piano, and delight in Sebastian Bach, and so are the same old fellow you were. I should not doubt it, but here one is surrounded with such direful examples of preachers who do their best to freeze up every pleasure for themselves and others; dry prosaic pedagogues, who regard a concert as sinful, and a country dance as a pernicious dissipation, think a theatre the lake of brimstone itself, and denounce the spring with its blossoms and sweet weather as a pit of corruption.
You will have heard of the Elberfeld breed. But in these parts it is still worse, and its result is abominable. Worst of all is the arrogance with which these folk look down on others, just as if no good thing could exist out of their own range.
Our music advances slowly, but it does advance. This summer we performed one of Bach’s masses in church, an Ave Maria out of “Verleih uns Frieden,” and next month we are giving Handel’s Te Deum (Dettingen). Of course there is a great deal to be desired, but one hears the things, and the performance and the performers gradually improve. Hauser at Leipsic has scored a cantata of Bach’s in E flat, by Seb. Bach from the manuscript of the voice parts, one of the strongest of his pieces that I know. When I can find time I will send you a copy. But now my paper and this letter are both at an end. Farewell, dear friend, and write to me shortly.Yours,
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
From part of the following letter we receive instructions on performing his "Psalm." Most important to note is the fun Mendelssohn finds in music. Even on serious subject matter the best, most uplifting outlook is to be given:
retrieved 13 August 2020 from: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50473/50473-h/50473-h.htm
To Fanny Hensel, Berlin.Leipzig, February 14th, 1841.
Salut et Fraternité!
Have you read the wrathful letter which the Emperor of China wrote to Lin, with a bright red pencil? Were this the fashion with us, I would write to you to-day with a grass-green pencil, or with a sky-blue one, or with whatever colour a pleasant pencil ought to assume, in gratitude for your admirable epistle on my birthday. My especial thanks also for the kind and friendly interest you have shown in the faithful Eckert; he is a sound, practical musician, and further than this, in my opinion (to which I sometimes adhere for twenty-four hours), no man should concern himself about another. Whether a person be anything extraordinary, unique, etc., is entirely a private matter. But in this world, every one ought to be honest and useful, and he who is not so, must and ought to be abused, from the Lord Chamberlain to the cobbler. Of all the young people whom I have had anything to do with here, he is the most good-natured, and by far the most inoffensive; and these are two precious qualities.
Don’t, I beg, write me anything more about your Sunday music, it is really a sin and a shame that I have not heard it; but though I feel so provoked at this, it is equally vexatious that you have heard none of our{245} truly brilliant subscription concerts. I tell you we glitter brightly—in Bengal fire. The other day, in our last historical concert (Beethoven), Herr Schmidt was suddenly taken ill, and could not sing to his “Ferne Geliebte” in the “Liederkreis.” In the middle of the first part David said, “I see Madame Devrient.” She had arrived that morning by rail, and was to return next day. So during an interval, I went up to her, was vastly polite, and she agreed to sing “Adelaide;” on which an old piano was carried into the orchestra from the anteroom. This was greeted with much applause, for people suspected that Devrient was coming. So come she did, in a shabby travelling costume, and Leipzig bellowed and shouted without end. She took off her bonnet before the publicum, and pointed to her black pelisse, as if to apologize for it. I believe they are still applauding! She sang beautifully, and there was a grand flourish of trumpets in her honour, and the audience clapped their hands, till not a single bow of the shabby pelisse was any longer visible. The next time we are to have a medley of Molique, Kalliwoda, and Lipinski,—and thus, according to Franck’s witticism, we descend from Adam to Holtei.
As to the tempi in my Psalm, all I have to say is, that the passage of the Jordan must be kept very watery; it would have a good effect if the chorus were to reel to and fro, that people might think they saw the waves; here we have achieved this effect. If you do not know{246} how to take the other tempi, ask G—— about them. He understands that capitally in my Psalms. With submission, allow me to suggest that the last movement be taken very slow indeed, as it is called “Sing to the Lord for ever and ever,” and ought therefore to last for a very long time! Forgive this dreadful joke. Adieu, dear Fanny.—Your
Felix.
Selected Letters of Mendelssohn/Letter 21 retrieved 13 August 2020 from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_letters_of_Mendelssohn/Letter_21
TO PASTOR JULIUS SCRUBRING AT DESSAU.
Leipsic, 2nd November, 1838.
Dear Schubring,—Many thanks indeed for your letter and the packet that followed it. You offer me a most essential service, for which I am very grateful; yet you ask if I desire it! I should have told you that the notes I sent were not designed for a completed plan, but only for a collection of material; however, when you have put them together, you leave me nothing to do but only to add the music. I agree that the passage about the widow should go out, also the raven, and that all the beginning should be brought more together so as to expand in the chief passages as one wants it to do. I earnestly beg you, if your time and convenience permit, to continue the first part and send it me—(it will have to be very long)—starting from the point at which your last contribution stopped; do so and you will earn my truest gratitude.
You say that at first you saw nothing to cut out, but then a light suddenly broke on you. For my own part, what struck me was to make Elijah a prophet through and through, the man we may really need to-day—a man strong and zealous, full of bitterness and scorn, the antagonist of the rabble, whether of courtiers or populace, well nigh the antagonist of all the world, yet borne aloft as on the wings of angels. Did that strike you also, and how came you to think of it? My object is to make the story dramatic; as you say, the epic style of narrative cannot come into it. That you look for the universal significance which goes to one’s heart in the Biblical words pleases me much: one thing I might say, which is that the dramatic element should here and there be very pregnantly and forcibly apparent. Speech and retort, question and answer, interruption of one speaker by another, all these and similar points are wanted. It is not that I object to Elijah being made first to speak of the assembly of the people, then immediately to the assembly; such a freedom is, of course, among the privileges of the oratorio; but in this mode of presentation I would gladly see as much naturalness as possible. Thus it puts me out that Elijah should only answer in ‘number 18’ to Ahab’s words in ‘16’ with several speeches and a chorus placed between. I would have liked a vigorous piece of dialogue there, etc. But on these points we shall very soon agree, only remember this if you can, in working further. With many thanks for your kindness.—Always yours,
Felix M. B.
Pastor Schubring was a dear friend as we can see from a letter sent a few years earlier upon the death of Mendelssohn's father:
Selected Letters of Mendelssohn/Letter 19 retrieved 13 August 2020 from: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_letters_of_Mendelssohn/Letter_19
TO PASTOR SCHUBRING AT DESSAU.
Leipsic, 6th December, 1835.[1]
Dear Schubring,—You no doubt know already what a heavy blow has fallen on the happiness of my life and on all who belong to me. It is the greatest misfortune possible; I must either endure it or sink under it. I say this now after three weeks; the keen pain of the first days is over, but I feel it only more assuredly; a new life must begin for me from this time, or all come to an end; the old life is torn away. It is our comfort and example that mother should be able to bear the loss with a wonderful quiet and steadfastness. She finds joy in her children and grandchildren, and thus tries to conceal from herself the blank which nothing can fill up. My sisters are doing everything to repay our debt to her, and give themselves up to this the more because it is so hard. I was ten days in Berlin, so that with my presence our mother might be surrounded by all that remains of our family, but what days those were I need not tell you. You understand well, and, I doubt not, have thought of me in this time of darkness. God granted my father’s often repeated petition; his end was as tranquil and gentle, and as unexpected in its rapidity as he had desired. On Wednesday, the 18th, we were all of us round him; late in the evening he went to bed; the next morning he complained a little; at half-past ten his life was ended. The doctors could give no name to his illness. My uncle says that my grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn died precisely in the same way, at the same age, and without illness, his mind bright and tranquil. I cannot say if you knew how especially good my father was to me of late years, how like a friend, so that my whole soul hung on him, and scarcely an hour of my long absence passed without bringing the thought of him into my mind. But you knew him in his own circle and knew how lovable was his character; you will realise what my feelings are. All that remains is duty, and I seek to do it with all my power, for that is what he would desire were he still present with us, and I shall not cease to struggle after what would content him, though the sight of his contentment is granted me no longer. In postponing a reply to your letter, I never thought I should have to answer thus: accept my thanks for it and for all your friendship. One passage for "St. Paul” is admirable: “Der Du der rechte Vater bist.” A chorus for it has been in my mind, and I shall write it very shortly. My especial aim is now to set about the completion of the “St. Paul” with double zeal, for my father’s last letter urged me to it. He awaited the finishing of this work with impatience, so it is to me as though I must throw myself into making the “St. Paul” as perfect as I can, and thus think he has still a share in it. If suggestions occur to you, pray continue to send them. You know how the work has shaped itself. To-day I have been writing at it again for the first time, and shall now do so daily. When it is finished, Heaven direct my further steps. Farewell, dear Schubring, and remember me.
Yours,
Felix Mendlessohn Bartholdy.
- ↑ After his father’s death.
Mendelssohn's thoughts in the following letter, although written concerning his earlier oratorio, St Paul, reveal thoughts about how "preachy" his libretto, and from thence his music, should be.
Selected Letters of Mendelssohn/Letter 16 retrieved 13 August 2020 from: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_letters_of_Mendelssohn/Letter_16
TO PASTOR SCHUBRING AT DESSAU.
Düsseldorf, 15th July, 1834.
Dear Schubring,—I have owed you a letter for almost a year. It is no use to begin with excuses; I am too hopelessly in the wrong, and should never get to the end of my apologies. Indeed, I couldn’t explain how the delay came about. On establishing myself here last autumn I got your letter with your notes for the “St. Paul;” they were the best contributions I had received, and that same afternoon I set to and thought it over seriously. I took a Bible, and sitting down amid all the confusion of my study, soon got so deep in it that I could hardly force myself to go on with other work which was bound to be completed first. I was on the point of writing then to give you my heartiest thanks, but then it struck me it would be pleasanter if I could say the thing had been already commenced, and when I really did begin it in the spring the manifold cares of composition sprang up to distract me. But now I cannot content myself with thinking of you, but must write to ask about yourself and your family. That the latter has increased I know, only was it quite right of you not to let me have a word on the subject, or even a bit of paste-board, but to leave me to the chance of a roundabout piece of information? Though I confess, indeed, I deserved this thoroughly, yet a preacher, as you are, is the last person who should exact vengeance, or bear malice against his enemy. Please don’t do so now, but let me hear from you again.
Your notes for the “St. Paul” were admirable; I have made use of them all without exception. It is a curious thing, and a good one, that in all the passages I formerly wanted to invert or alter for the sake of the composition, I have time after time had to restore the precise text of the Bible; it is the best in the end. Half the first part is now ready; I hope to end it by Autumn and to complete the whole about February. But how are things going at Dessau? It would be pleasant to hear they remained just as they were. I do hope you still keep your cheerfulness and love of life, still play the piano, and delight in Sebastian Bach, and so are the same old fellow you were. I should not doubt it, but here one is surrounded with such direful examples of preachers who do their best to freeze up every pleasure for themselves and others; dry prosaic pedagogues, who regard a concert as sinful, and a country dance as a pernicious dissipation, think a theatre the lake of brimstone itself, and denounce the spring with its blossoms and sweet weather as a pit of corruption.
You will have heard of the Elberfeld breed. But in these parts it is still worse, and its result is abominable. Worst of all is the arrogance with which these folk look down on others, just as if no good thing could exist out of their own range.
Our music advances slowly, but it does advance. This summer we performed one of Bach’s masses in church, an Ave Maria out of “Verleih uns Frieden,” and next month we are giving Handel’s Te Deum (Dettingen). Of course there is a great deal to be desired, but one hears the things, and the performance and the performers gradually improve. Hauser at Leipsic has scored a cantata of Bach’s in E flat, by Seb. Bach from the manuscript of the voice parts, one of the strongest of his pieces that I know. When I can find time I will send you a copy. But now my paper and this letter are both at an end. Farewell, dear friend, and write to me shortly.Yours,
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
From part of the following letter we receive instructions on performing his "Psalm." Most important to note is the fun Mendelssohn finds in music. Even on serious subject matter the best, most uplifting outlook is to be given:
retrieved 13 August 2020 from: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50473/50473-h/50473-h.htm
To Fanny Hensel, Berlin.Leipzig, February 14th, 1841.
Salut et Fraternité!
Have you read the wrathful letter which the Emperor of China wrote to Lin, with a bright red pencil? Were this the fashion with us, I would write to you to-day with a grass-green pencil, or with a sky-blue one, or with whatever colour a pleasant pencil ought to assume, in gratitude for your admirable epistle on my birthday. My especial thanks also for the kind and friendly interest you have shown in the faithful Eckert; he is a sound, practical musician, and further than this, in my opinion (to which I sometimes adhere for twenty-four hours), no man should concern himself about another. Whether a person be anything extraordinary, unique, etc., is entirely a private matter. But in this world, every one ought to be honest and useful, and he who is not so, must and ought to be abused, from the Lord Chamberlain to the cobbler. Of all the young people whom I have had anything to do with here, he is the most good-natured, and by far the most inoffensive; and these are two precious qualities.
Don’t, I beg, write me anything more about your Sunday music, it is really a sin and a shame that I have not heard it; but though I feel so provoked at this, it is equally vexatious that you have heard none of our{245} truly brilliant subscription concerts. I tell you we glitter brightly—in Bengal fire. The other day, in our last historical concert (Beethoven), Herr Schmidt was suddenly taken ill, and could not sing to his “Ferne Geliebte” in the “Liederkreis.” In the middle of the first part David said, “I see Madame Devrient.” She had arrived that morning by rail, and was to return next day. So during an interval, I went up to her, was vastly polite, and she agreed to sing “Adelaide;” on which an old piano was carried into the orchestra from the anteroom. This was greeted with much applause, for people suspected that Devrient was coming. So come she did, in a shabby travelling costume, and Leipzig bellowed and shouted without end. She took off her bonnet before the publicum, and pointed to her black pelisse, as if to apologize for it. I believe they are still applauding! She sang beautifully, and there was a grand flourish of trumpets in her honour, and the audience clapped their hands, till not a single bow of the shabby pelisse was any longer visible. The next time we are to have a medley of Molique, Kalliwoda, and Lipinski,—and thus, according to Franck’s witticism, we descend from Adam to Holtei.
As to the tempi in my Psalm, all I have to say is, that the passage of the Jordan must be kept very watery; it would have a good effect if the chorus were to reel to and fro, that people might think they saw the waves; here we have achieved this effect. If you do not know{246} how to take the other tempi, ask G—— about them. He understands that capitally in my Psalms. With submission, allow me to suggest that the last movement be taken very slow indeed, as it is called “Sing to the Lord for ever and ever,” and ought therefore to last for a very long time! Forgive this dreadful joke. Adieu, dear Fanny.—Your
Felix.
