TO PAUL MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.
My Dear Brother, You have taken so kind an interest in my "Elijah" from the beginning, and your encouragement has helped me so much to its completion, that I feel bound to write to you at once after the first performance yesterday, and tell you how things went. Never did the first production of any piece of mine succeed so admirably, or call out such enthusiastic sympathy from musicians and public as this oratorio. At the first rehearsal in London it was evident that it won favour, and that the performers played and sang the music with pleasure, but I confess that the swing and zest of the first performance were far beyond what I expected. I only wish you could have been there! Through the whole two and a half hours that it lasted, the great hall filled with 2,000 people, and the great orchestra all strained to the utmost and concentrated on the music, not a single whisper among the audience; I could control absolutely the crowd of instruments and the great volume of choir and organ, leading them precisely as I wanted. How often did I think of you! No less than four choruses and four airs had to be repeated, and in the whole of the first part there was not a single mistake. In the second there were one a or two, but these very insignificant. A young English tenor sang the last air most beautifully, so much so that I had to pull myself together not to let my feelings hinder me from beating time decently. As I said before, would you had been there! To-morrow is my return. Nowadays one does not, like Goethe, see the carriage-pole pointed homewards, but I still have always the same feeling when I am starting back to my own country. In October I hope to see you in Berlin, and will bring the scene, either to perform in public or to play it in secret to you and Fanny and Rebecca, the first probably, but by all means the second also. Farewell, my dear brother, and excuse this letter if it is stupid. I am often much distracted, and all I have really to say is to thank you for your interest in my "Elijah" and the help you have given me.