Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1892-05-19
MUSICS MARVELLOUS MASTER
The Wonderful Work of Mem
delssohn as a Boy.
AN ABLE PROFESSOR AMAZED
The Youthful Pupil Could
Give the Master Points.


In view Oh tnc approaching concert OF
the Tuesday Club, which is to be rem
dercd upon Tuesday, May gath, it may
not be out of place to give some little
outline Of the personality of the com
posers whose works the club will sing
Mendelssohn, Weber and Rossini.
There is, perhaps, no class of men
concerning whose life -history so little is
directly known as musicians. Beetho-
ven, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart,
Mendclssohn, are names known the
world over, but only hcmcagerest frag-
ments of their personal histories are
really known. And yet, to layman
the gift OF music is one OF the strangest,
the most mysterious that comes to men.
The faculty for other arts does not come
to lis possessor intuitiyely and full
grown, but is acquired only BY long
practice and an apprenticeship such MS
is needed in no other trade.
A poet does not really write poetry
until he is well and thoroughly matured
nor painter paint good pictures
in his childhood, and a novelist almost
never strikes notable key before rs or
30 years of age.
With musician it is not so. Music,
the most intricate and indefinite of all
the arts, seems to come TO its possessors
fully formed and matured
The stories told of musicians would
be incredible il they were not thoroughly
and historically authenticated. Mozart.
for instance, before he was years old
had written some half-dozen compost.
tons for piano and violin, the first hav.
ing been written when he was ut the
age OF 3. lie was only 10 years old
when he was appointed court capell--
meister in Salt1burg. Handel played
the organ and conducted the choir in the
Halle Cathedral when only l / years old /,
and wrote music on the sly in the garrett
of his fathers house when only years
old.
Such stories would be unbelievable
were they not well-authenticate and
historical
Felix Mendelssohn- Bastholdy was lust
such an example of marvellous musical
precocity. He was born in 1909, al
Hamburg, the son of wealthy and
cultivated Jewish banker. Unlike all
most all other great musicians, who had
generally to strive against bitter and
unpropitious fate, he had no hard and
disheartcning struggle against adverse
| fortune. lie was surrounded by all the
| luxuries and reiinements that wealth
could produce. Music was not ihrashed
| into him, as il was into poor little Carl
| Weber, by harsh and brutal father,
| A loving, gentle and beautiful mother
taught his little baby fingers to spread
over the keys and play the scales upon
| the piano.
lie was moi quite three years old when
he began studying music, and the same
marvellous aptitude that had marked
others marked him as musician.
| When he was nine he played the piano
in public, in a concert organized by
Gugel. Before he was thirteen he com
posed cantata, and in the same year,
ls20-2l, he wrote piano forte trio in
three movements, two piano forte
sonatas, four organ pieces, three
| songs, a violin sonata, sLust-
spiel in three scenes and other
pieces, comprising altogether some
sixty distinct movements. Conceive
Of such prolific aptitude from a
child Of thirteen! lie visited the poet
Goethe the following year, boy OF
fourteen, but an honored and admired
guest among the other famous people
/ VIM VioitNA t4C hoAbGy anu llt WTlIpS
home of having played the piano forte
before the grand duke and the grand
duchess from eleven in the morning to
ten in the evening"
When he was 10 Moschelles, the great
| pianist and teacher, visited Berlin and
was asked TO give him lessons. In his
diary the great pianist says: eTo-day
from two to three lgave Felix his lesson;
| but not for a moment could | conceal
from myself that was with my master
not with my pupil.
Such was the childhood of the master.
the fruit Of the manhood is known to
music the world over. II is impossible
to listen to his compositions without
being impressed with their infinite re.
| iinement and polish. Handel, Haydn,
Ressini, and especially Mozart, dashed
| off their scores at furious pace,
Mendelssohn's was elaborated with a
care and minutcness beyond expression.
| lie wrote and rewrotc and even after
the music was given to the world,
altered and amended con amore.
The "95th Psalm which is to be
sung at the coming concert, was com
posed in the very prime Of his powers,
about nine years before his gentle,
peaceful, untimely death in ls47.
lie, as well us his father and mother.
became ultimately members Of the Chris.
tian church, and the pictures of him that
one usually sees seem strangely Chris
tan-like in features in expression. The
writer OF this paper, however knows III
u rare and curious death mask in the
possession of Mr.. Lawrence Hutton. Ii
was taken Immediately after he passed
away, and il shows the face of i man