MENDELSSOHN.
97
these folk look down on others, just as if no good thing could exist out of their own range.
Our music advances slowly, but it does advance. This summer we performed one of Bach’s masses in church, an Ave Maria out of “Verleih uns Frieden,” and next month we are giving Handel’s Te Deum (Dettingen). Of course there is a great deal to be desired, but one hears the things, and the performance and the performers gradually improve. Hauser at Leipsic has scored a cantata of Bach’s in E flat, by Seb. Bach from the manuscript of the voice parts, one of the strongest of his pieces that I know. When I can find time I will send you a copy. But now my paper and this letter are both at an end. Farewell, dear friend, and write to me shortly.Yours,
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
