Painted portrait of Felix Mendelssohn in his late thirties, dark curling hair, long side-whiskers and a black silk stock, against a pale celadon ground

Portraits · Composers · XII of XVII

Felix Mendelssohn

1809–1847 · Composer

The smallest real service to Art lays hold of your inmost thoughts, leading you so far away from town, and country, and from earth itself…

Eben wenn alles Andere, was Einen abziehen soll, so widerwärtig, leer und schaal erscheint, so ergreift Einen schon die kleinste wirkliche Thätigkeit der Kunst gleich so im Innern, führt so weit, weit von der Stadt, vom Lande, von der Erde weg, daß es ein wahrer Gottessegen ist.

Felix Mendelssohn · letter to a friend, 1843
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Felix Mendelssohn wrote this from Leipzig in January 1843 to his friend Carl Klingemann in London, weeks after his mother's death. Too sorrowful to compose, he sat for hours writing out his Walpurgisnacht score, with "the old familiar oboes and tenor violins, which live so much longer than we do".

This page of it is in his hand, from ten years before.

Letter to Carl Klingemann, London, from Leipzig, 13 January 1843. Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from 1833 to 1847, ed. Paul and Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdy, trans. Lady [Grace] Wallace (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1863), p. 328. German: Briefe aus den Jahren 1833 bis 1847 (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1863), p. 371.

The originals

Oil portrait of Felix Mendelssohn, dark curling hair, long side-whiskers, black coat and stock, against a dark brown ground
The likenessPAINTED BY EDUARD MAGNUS · 1846Our portrait is painted after it.Public domain (painter died 1872; faithful reproduction of a 2D work). Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; Wikimedia Commons.
A handwritten page of choral and orchestral score in black ink, with a solo line and German words, marked Vivace and signed Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy at the foot
Die erste Walpurgisnacht, 1832–33A page of his setting of Goethe's poem, signed at the foot. In January 1843 he was writing out the whole score afresh.Autograph fragment, signed, 1832–33, f. 2. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Musique, MS-207 (Gallica btv1b10870763h). Public domain.