MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847) - photo 1
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847) - photo 2

MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847)

Lot 63
14.12.2022 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 7 560
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 870745
Lot 63 | MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847)
Estimate value
£ 5 000 – 8 000
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847)

Autograph letter signed ('F. Mendelssohn') to Rudolph Gugel, Berlin, 1 November 1819.

In German. Four pages, 215 x 129mm, including a three-bar musical quotation, on a bifolium. Provenance: Gerd Rosen auction, Berlin, 1953 – Hugo von Mendelssohn Bartholdy – International Felix Mendelssohn Society, Basel; later with Lion Heart Autographs, Cat. 35 (1997), lot 17.



A precocious letter written at the age of ten: the second-earliest surviving Mendelssohn letter. The young Mendelssohn opens with protests, 'I wrote to you twice without getting an answer – am I not supposed to take revenge? ... Well, peace, that was in jest ... I still quite often think about [here Mendelssohn writes a musical quotation of three bars]. How that tall rascal stood there and blew into a horn twice his size. But really! I haven't answered you because I had so much to do these days that I breathed only Latin, French and mathematics. A double sonata which I composed came on top of that, and thus I rarely finished before 8.30. Of course, you are spending grand days with your uncle ... the horn and laziness fight over my heart'. The letter continues with news of 'our little Sophie' and greetings from his piano teacher, the composer Ludwig Berger.



The recipient, Rudolph Gugel, was both the son and nephew of horn players (Heinrich and Joseph Gugel). Mendelssohn had made his private debut performance in the previous year, followed by his public debut in a concert by Gugel, in which he played the piano part for a trio for piano and two horns by the Austrian composer Joseph Woelfl (1773-1812), which he quotes here. Shortly before the present letter was written, he had entered the Berlin Singakademie, and his first experiments in composition followed, 'a profusion of small-scale works in which the boy sought to master the world of musical form' (New Grove). Only one earlier Mendelssohn letter (from 1817) survives. Sämtliche Briefe no.3.





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This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.
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10.12.2022 – 13.12.2022
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