HISTORY OF MENDELSSOHN'S "ELIJAH."
enormous orchestra and choir, and also the organ accompaniment. How often I thought of you during the time ! More especially, however, when the
- sound of abundance of rain ' came, and when they
sang the final chorus wiih furore, and when, after the close of the first part, we were obliged to repeat the whole movement ['Thanks be to God '] . Not less than four choruses and four airs were encored, and not one single mistake occurred in the whole of the first part ; there were some afterwards in the second part, but even these were but trifling. A young English tenor* sang the last air [' Then shall the righteous shine forth '] so beautifully, that I was obliged to collect all my energies so as not to be affected, and to continue beating time steadily. As I said, if you had only been there ! "
In a letter written from London (August 31, 1S46) to Frau Livia Frege, of Leipzig — a gifted amateur singer with a very lovely and high soprano voice — Mendelssohn said : —
" You have always shown so much kind interest in my ' Elijah,' that I look upon it as a duty to write to you after its performance, and to give }-ou an account of it. If this should weary you, you have only yourself to blame ; for why did you allow me to come to you with the score under m}- arm, and play to you those parts that were half completed, and why did you sing so much of it to me at sight? You really ought to have felt it a duty to travel with me to
- Mr. Charles Lockey.
( S6 )
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