28 AUGUST 1852, Page 20

RELICS OF MENDELSSOHN.*

During the summer of 1847-the last summer of Mendelssohn's life- he spent several months at Interlacken in Switzerland. He had left "England in a state of health which alarmed his friends ; and he had no sooner reached home than he received news -of the sudden death of his sister, to whom he had always been fondly attached. He was for a time prostrated by the blow, but recovered sufficiently to comply with the wish of his anxious family that he would try the effect of rest and the bracing air of the Swiss mountains. At Interlacken his strength rapidly returned; but then, instead of indulging in repose, he resumed his artistic labours with more ardour than ever. During his residence there, as we are informed by Mr. Benedict in his interesting Memoir, "two violin quartets were composed and written out; the first act of an opera named Lorely was completed; and several portions of the new grand ora- torio of Christ (our Saviour's earthly career, descent to hell, and ascension to heaven) were sketched out and partly finished." The hope of his re- storation to health proved fallacious: when he returned home to Leipzio he relapsed, and expired on the 4th of November, in his thirty-ninth year.

Of the posthumous works of Mendelssohn, by far the most important are the two above mentioned-the fragments of the oratorio, and the opera on which he was employed with so much ardour in his Swiss retreat. They have been lately published here, by the eminent house with which Mendelssohn was for many years in close correspondence ; and they are to be performed, for the first time, at the approaching Birmingham Fes- tival.

The portions of the oratorio do not form a connected series. The com- poser unquestionably had formed the plan of the whole subject ; but he appears to have taken up and worked upon such parts of it as were most agreeable to his frame of mind at the time. The first portion is evidently the commencement of the work. The three sages from the East, guided by the star to the piece of our Lord's nativity, hear the glad tidings of man's salvation from a choir of angels. The introductory, recitative-the question of the wise men, "Say, where is he born, the King of Judea ? " thrown into a fine trio, two tenors and a bass-and the responsive chorus of the angels, a piece of billy celestial harmony-form one large and con- nected piece of music. Between this and the next portion there is a con- siderable lacune ; but it too is extended and coherent. Christ is brought before Pilate by a furious multitude, who call loudly for his death. Pilate endeavours to pacify them, saying, "In this man I find no evil" • but they continue to cry, with increasing violence, "Crucify him, crucify him!" till Pilate yields to their clamour-" Take him and crucify him, for I cannot find a fault in him." A recitative relates that the populace led Jesus to Golgotha, followed by a multitude of men and women, be- wailing and lamenting for him; and this is succeeded by a quartet and chorus, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep for yourielves and your chil- dren.' The concluding part of the published music is a grand choral hymn of praise and thanksgiving, which seems to have been designed to form the finale of the whole. These fragments seem to place it beyond a doubt that the Christus would have been the greatest and the most beauti- ful of Mendelssohn's works. They indicate a further progress in the same direction which his Elijah showed him to have taken,-a continued tendency towards simplicity, a more complete emancipation from scholas- tic forms, an increased grandeur of conception and power of pathetic ex- pression.

The fragment of the opera-Iorek-is one connected piece ; the finale to the first act, very largely developed. The subject is said to have been taken from an old Rhenish legend. We do not know what it is; but, supposing this finale to be an entire piece of music it tells its own story well enough to satisfy the listener. A. deserted damsel, full of grief and ire, seeks a haunted spot on the banks of the Rhine, and her cries for vengeance are heard and answered by the spirits of the stream. The dia- logue between the maiden and the spirits is carried on, on her part in recitative and air, full of intense passion, and on theirs, in wild and un- earthly choral responses. The music is in the highest degree original, and everything that could have been expected from Mendelssohn's genius. Being acquainted with these precious relics only through the medium of the published pianoforte score, we can but endeavour to imagine what must be the effect of their public performance. But, taking them as we have them-as chamber music-they are the most interesting additions to our stock of this kind of music that have been made for many a day.

• Choruses &c. in " Christus," an unfinished Oratorio. Finale to the First Act of "Lorely," an Opera. Published by Ewer and Co.