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Search - Song Without Worlds

Song Without Worlds
Author: John Erskine

SONG WITHOUT WORDS THE STORY OF FELIX MENDELSSOHN Without Wor ds Tlie Ston of felix Mendelssohn ty Jokn Crsfciwe Julian JHessnev, Inc. V Tim Torfe , x My thanks to Margaret Miller and to Oscar Wagner for reading proofs of this book. They did their best to take the errors out of it. JOHN ERSKJGNTE. Contents INTRODUCTION IX I. MUSIC IN THE HOME 3 ... more »II. VISITS TO GOETHE 10 III. MIDSUMMER NIGHT S DREAM 23 IV, THE BACH REVIVAL 33 V. ENGLAND 44 VI. ROME AND PARIS 57 VII. SONGS WITHOUT WORDS 70 VIII. DUSSELDORF 81 IX. LEIPZIG 98 X. ST. PAUL AND THE HYMN OF PRAISE 112 XL BERLIN 123 XII. VOICE, PIANO, VIOLIN 139 XIII. THE LARGER MIDSUMMER NIGHT S DREAM 149 XIV. ELIJAH 161 XV. THE ELIJAH 174 LIST OF MENDELSSOHN S WORKS 179 LIST OF MENDELSSOHN RECORDINGS 195 BIBLIOGRAPHY 199 INDEX 203 Introduction TAKOB LUDWIG FELIX MENDELSSOHN Bartholdy was a wonder child of music. His life was short, but into it was crowded almost incredible accomplishment and the rarest of good fortune. The happiness which he enjoyed is held against him by some biographers, who suggest that he might have been a greater man, and his music might now seem to us more profound, if he had had his share of hard knocks. That point of view will not be found in this book. The best of his fortune was his character, a direct gift from remarkable parents and grandparents. That he was rich and that he enjoyed extraordinary opportunities to improve himself, followed naturally from great intelli gence and prodigious industry in his elders. His genius was the gift of heaven, but the history of art is full of geniuses who miss the success to which, as we say, they were entitled. He had genius, but he worked. If Felix Mendelssohn seemed properly named a happy child, we should remember that he and his sister Fanny were always glad when Sunday came, since on that day they didn t have to get up at five o clock to study their lessons. His grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, was a famous philosopher. His father, an important banker, used to say ix INTRODUCTION with a laugh that he was only a hyphen between the first and the third generation. His mother, herself a musician, trained her four children, Fanny, Felix, Rebecca and Paul, to develop their gifts to the utmost, rebuking them firmly when they showed the slightest disposition, even in their earliest years, to dawdle or waste time. If her curly haired, dark-eyed wonder child stood idle a moment after luncheon, listening perhaps to the talk of a famous visitor, she would say, quot Felix, have you nothing to do quot and the child would get at his piano, or his violin, or his com posing, or his landscape drawing, or his books. She her self gave Fanny and Felix their first piano lessons, and for years she sat beside them while they practiced, so that no measure should be played even once the wrong way. With such discipline you might expect a genius to ac quire some resentment toward his parents, but Felix adored both his father and his mother, and he loved his home. With good reason. The theory on which he was educated was nearly, if not quite, ideal His curiosity was encouraged, and study was presented to him not as a blind routine, but always as a means of getting at some thing which otherwise would be inaccessible. He began composing at an extremely early age. By the time he was thirteen he had written some sixty pieces for piano and violin, for string quartet, for voices, and for small orchestra. He had even composed three operettas, the texts of which had been furnished by an acquaintance of his father s, a physician, who exercised his bass voice, how well we don t know, but certainly with an amateur s x INTRODUCTION relish. The habit of incessant composition remained with Felix all his life. Perhaps it exhausted him. He completed his wonderful oratorio quot Elijah quot only a short time before his death...

ISBN-13: 9781406770797
ISBN-10: 1406770795
Publication Date: 3/15/2007
Pages: 220
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Bronson Press
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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