New-York tribune., 1910-09-18


mate mastery Of it has marred the excellence Of
Felix Mendelssohn 0S09-'4O in the eyes Of the
self-elected champions of progress since his
death, nearly two generations ago. Perfection
in god is tolerable. but in q mere human artist
contemplation Of it becomes a vexation and
WEAKNESS of the flesh. In his lifetime Mendels-
sohn idoized: after he dead he was
overwhelmed with critical contumely. Now de-
spite the irreVerence Of the age, the divine light
is again recognized in his cOuntenance. Reform
ers and revolutonists are prone to be image
breakers 1t is more difficult for artists who
impressOnists because they lack the skill to be
anything else, to admire mpeccable perfection
in execution than for those whose impression
ism is 4 fulfIment of all their desires.
Iendelssohn brought sword into the world;
he was a refOTmer of taste, but not a revolution
ist- There is not a word in the technical vo-
cabulary of pianoforte music which traces it's
origin to him. To the romantic content of music
he added little more than form and an idom;
and because the form was degraded to for
mula by himself and his fmitators and the
idiom overWorked their value soon came to be
underestimated. 1T is pity" said Rubinsten
to his pupils at the Imperial Conserva atory in
st. Petersburg, that I to play Mendelssohn
for you after Weber If I had played him after
Herr YOU would better understand why we must
think of him highly" The point was we'll
taken 1t is also something of a pity that in this
discussion l have placed Schumann before him:
bat 1t was done SO that 1 might the quicker
feach the heart of this phase of our study. In
feadIhS q DOCK one may, if he wishes, turn back
ana reread an earlier page, while at recital
one can revert to what has been done only by
appeal TO memory and the imagination.
Memberships life was contemporary with
Schumann's, though its artistic activities began
r1inrt t1,a,, h Il
later. He too, made on the Philistines though
his was the SUGritC7 IN in0do rather than the
I0iftf1' an re Of his friend and admirer Herr
ana halkbrenner, Dreyschock and List yes,
even l-lsZt, were filling the salons of Paris with
the jngles Of operatic fantasies while Mendels-
sohn IN Germany and England was turning the
minds Of amateurs to purer taste by compo-
sitions which combined perfection of form with
marvellous clarity, purity and unity of style,
mastery counterpart, graceful melody, euphony
and brilliancy. 1t is easy to smile the mushy
sentmentalism of the majority of the Songs
Without Words now. but think of them back in
their historical environment and you will not
Flthhod from them honor due How hackneyed
lre the Spinning Song and the "Hunting"
ESpring and "Gondola' songs; but gtve your
imagination q little flight. MendeIssohn sits
playing them in Lepsic, Berlin or London while
IN Whlted sepulchre in Paris Herz's panoforte
S'iiItiiiattS VIII scales, arpegglOS, tr1ilS and
pretty br0deries above, below and around me-
IodIc echoes of ROssini and Bellini and Donizetti
How do the Songs Without Words" sound now?
Pianistc babes and sucklings have mastered
their difficulties long ago, but virtuosi who
think seriously of their art still play them in
public, and must not think it Is only to
ingratiate themselves with boarding school
misses
80 much for MendelsSOhn'S most marked con-
trlbutlon to pianoforte literature in the depart
ment Of form; as for the fairy idiom of his
schcrzos, though it, too. has been greatly
abused, by him well as his successors it was
an inspiration straight from the world of sun
SHINE and happiness in which Mendelssohn lived
and moved and had his being; and il is as sub
stantal and beautiful a contribution to the Ian
guage OF music as the plangent tone of Chopin's
hoctufnes even to-day. 1t was not in vain that
MehdeISSohns s mother named him Felix and
we should not repine that there was no tragedy
III ms hle which he found it necessary to pro-
cam 1t IS singular fact that this idiom fell
lnto the mind of the glorious boy when he wrote
his overture to "A Midsummer NIGHTS Dr.an
in the same year in which Weber, sinking main
Iacked into his grave. found appropriate and
similar dellneaton for his fairy folk in "Oberon
1t proved to be seryiceable in many instru
mental forms, and though it has been nucb
abused, its cnaTm remains perennial