MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847) - photo 1
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847) - photo 2
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847) - photo 3

MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847)

Lot 64
14.12.2022 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 1 260
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 870835
Lot 64 | MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847)
Estimate value
£ 2 000 – 3 000
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847)

Letter signed ('Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy') to Adolf Lindblad, Berlin, 11 April 1830.

In German. Densely written on 3 1/4 pages, 264 x 222mm, integral address panel to Lindblad in Stockholm. Provenance: Christie's, 3 December 2003, lot 33 (part).



Measles, new compositions and a strong dislike for the composer Franz Berwald. The 21-year-old Mendelssohn has measles, and is therefore dictating the letter. He pretends to have been angry with Lindblad: 'We had made an agreement to exchange our new compositions, and so I sent you my new quartet in A minor [op. 13] in the hope of soon making acquaintance with something new from you: thereafter you write again and announce to me camp sonatas and fugues [Lager-Sonaten, Lager-Fugen] and a quintet, which you are supposed to have sent to me via Magnus; Magnus arrived, and had had nothing from you...'. However, when Mendelssohn returned to Berlin in December, he found a friendly letter to his mother and a sonata in A-major, so all is forgiven: he goes on to ask for instructions on tempos for a number of recent compositions, and gives details of his own Meeresstille [op. 27], after a poem by Goethe. The letter concludes with a discussion of the personality of Lindblad's fellow-countryman [Franz] Berwald, to whom Mendelssohn has taken a dislike: he approves of a drive to perfectionism in a musician, but he detests the way that Berwald's compositions resemble those of someone who 'creates nothing of his own, but rather produces borrowed thoughts bit by bit and tries to sprinkle them with all sorts of strangeness ... that's how it seemed to me in his compositions, stuffed with strange harmonies'; Berwald also outraged Mendelssohn by daring to criticise Beethoven's Fidelio.



Adolf Lindblad (1801-1878) is best known as a composer of lieder: he became friends with Mendelssohn when studying for a year in Berlin in 1825, and they corresponded frequently thereafter. The composer Franz Berwald (1796-1868) had moved to Berlin in the previous year, although he was obliged to earn a living through orthopedics and physiotherapy, and did not resume composing until after moving to Vienna in 1841. It is unknown who acted as the amanuensis for the ailing Mendelssohn in this letter. Sämtliche Briefe no. 293.





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