TO R. SIMROCK AT BONN.
Leipsic, 4th March, 1839.
……. The manuscripts I meant to send you last year are still incomplete. I want them to be good work, and for that good humour and leisure are necessary, things which these endless concerts often deprive me of. Now I hope soon to make an end of them, and discharge my debt.
But they are not “songs without words.” Indeed, I have no intention of producing any more of that species, let the Hamburgers say what they will. There are too many crawling between earth and heaven already, and in the end they grow insipid. There is too great a mass of music for the piano composed in that style. It is time to strike another note, say I. With most sincere respect.
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.