This is the shortest day, and very gloomy, as might have been anticipated; so to-day nothing can be thought of but fugues, chorals, balls, etc. But I must say a few words about Guido's "Aurora," which I often visit; it is a picture the very type of haste and impetus; for surely no man ever imagined such hurry and tumult, such sounding and clashing. Painters maintain that it is lighted from two sides,—they have my full permission to light theirs from three if it will improve them,—but the difference lies elsewhere.
I really cannot compose a tolerable song here, for who is there to sing it to me? But I am writing a grand fugue, "Wir glauben all," and sing it to myself in such a fashion that my friend the Captain rushes downstairs in alarm, puts in his head, and asks what I want. I answer—a counter theme. But how much I do really want; and yet how much I have got! Thus life passes onwards.
Felix.
YOU ARE READING
Letters of Felix Mendelssohn
Non-FictionFelix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was a German Jewish composer and one of the most-celebrated figures of the early Romantic period. In his music Mendelssohn observed Classical models and practices while initiating aspects of Romanticism-the artistic mov...
