Letters of Felix Mendelssohn

Wallenstadt, September 2nd.

(Year of rains and storms.) Motto of the copper-smith—"If you can't sing a new song, then begin the old one afresh." Here am I again in the midst of fogs and clouds, unable to go either backwards or forwards, and if fortune specially favours us, we may have a slight inundation into the bargain. When I crossed the lake, the boatmen prophesied very fine weather, consequently the rain began half an hour later, and is not likely soon to cease, for there are piles of heavy, gloomy clouds, such as you can only see on the mountains. If it were twice as bad three days hence, I should not care, but it would be grievous indeed if Switzerland were to take leave of me with so ill-omened an aspect.

I have this moment returned from the church, where I have been playing the organ for three hours, far into the twilight: an old man, a cripple, blew the bellows for me, and except him, there was not a single soul in the church. The only stops I found available, were a very weak croaking flute, and a quavering deep pedal diapason, of sixteen feet. I contrived to extemporize with these materials, and at last subsided into a choral melody in E minor, without being able to remember what it was. I could not get rid of it, when all at once it occurred to me that it was a Litany, the music of which was in my head because the words were in my heart, so then I had a wide field, and plenty of food for extemporizing. At length the consumptive deep bass resounded quite alone in E minor, thus:—

and then came in its turn the flute, high up in the treble, with the choral in the same key, and so the sounds of the organ gradually died away, and I was obliged to stop, from the church being so dark.

In the meantime there was a terrible hurricane of wind and rain outside, and not a trace of the grand lofty rocky precipices; the most dreary weather! and then I read some dreary newspapers, and everything wore a grey hue. Tell me, Fanny, do you know Auber's "Parisienne?" I consider it the very worst thing he has ever produced, perhaps because the subject was really sublime, and for other reasons also. Auber alone could have been guilty of composing for a great nation, in the most violent state of excitement, a cold, insignificant piece, quite commonplace, and trivial. The refrain revolts me every time I think of it,—it is as if children were playing with a drum, and singing to it—only more objectionable. The words also are worthless; little antitheses and points are quite out of place here. Then the emptiness of the music! a march for acrobats, and at the end a mere miserable imitation of the "Marseillaise." Such music is not what this epoch demands. Woe to us if it be indeed what suits this epoch,—if a mere copy of the Marseillaise Hymn be all that is required. What in the latter is full of fire, and spirit, and impetus, is in the former ostentatious, cold, calculated, and artificial. The "Marseillaise" is as superior to the "Parisienne" as everything produced by genuine enthusiasm must be, to what is made for a purpose, even if it be with a view to promote enthusiasm; it will never reach the heart, because it does not come from the heart.

By the way, I never saw such a striking identity between a poet and a musician, as between Auber and Clauren. Auber faithfully renders note for note, what the other writes word for word—braggadocio, degrading sensuality, pedantry, epicurism, and parodies of foreign nationality. But why should Clauren be effaced from the literature of the day? Is it prejudicial to any one that he should remain where he is? and do you read what is really good with less interest? Any young poet must indeed be degenerate, if he does not cordially hate and despise such trash; but it is only too true that the people like him; so it is all very well, it is only the people's own loss. Write me your opinion of the "Parisienne." I sometimes sing it to myself for fun, as I go along; it makes a man walk like a chorister in a procession.