I made another effort in the year 1840 to gratify one of my strongest musical wishes, with the earnest hope, too, of changing my first year's opinion of the Berlin opera, and of bringing my voice into concord with theirs who had described that theatre as affording the choicest music, executed in the most magnificent perfection.

I was at Leipsic on a drizzling, dreary Thursday afternoon, in October 1840, the very weather to make an invalid—many days' distant from his own books and music, and stared at by the cold, glazed, sombre stove instead of being smiled on by his fire (that only companion with whom one is never at odds)— anticipate an evening of choice chamber-music, and the carte blanche “to do just as he liked” with particular gusto. “How unfortunate you are!” said Mendelssohn, who came in to pay me a friendly visit. “They have changed the opera at Berlin to-morrow night, and are going to give Gluck's ‘Iphigenia in Tauris.’ The letter has only just come. Eckert has taken a stall for you: you could have got there in time. What a pity you cannot go!”

This was in the week of the “Huldigung,” when the nobles of Prussia had prepared for the new king in their metropolis those shows which the limited boundaries of Königsberg, where the monarch was crowned, rendered impossible.

The great music by Beethoven, performed in Beethoven's honour, at this Beethoven Festival, under the conduct of Drs. Spohr and Liszt, consisted of his Mass in C in the Minster, his Missa Solennis and Choral Symphony, his Overture to “Coriolan,” his Symphony in C minor, his pianoforte Concerto in E flat, – “Adelaida,” – the song of the Seraph from his “Mount of Olives,” and the Finale to his “Fidelio.”

To descant on the larger portion of these works would happily be now a most superfluous labour, so far as English readers are concerned. Even the Choral Symphony is now well known in London, with all its brilliant and all its obscure points–its splendours and its crudities (the last, few but striking) ; and such general remarks on the last manner of its composer as I have fancied not unimportant, belong to a subsequent chapter of these journals. Another of his great works selected, however, was, and probably will always remain to be, less familiar ; and thus a few hints on its nature and properties may not be wholly impertinent.

It was at Bonn that many–myself among the number–came to know Beethoven's “Missa Solennis”–by being for the first time present at a correct performance of that stupendous musical work.

The following book must not be offered to the public without a distinct statement of the materials of which it is composed.

A portion of it appeared in “ Music and Manners in France and North Germany” which was published in the year 1841. Since that work was prepared, I have again and again visited North and South Germany, always, in such visits, looking to one and the same object of interest—always endeavouring to complete my knowledge of the state of musical creation, performance, and artistic life, as they existed previous to the year of confusion, 1848.—In more senses than one, the recent European revolution marks the close of a period;—and I have fancied that, by throwing together my earlier and my later recollections and criticisms, some small contribution might possibly be made to the history of a favourite Art during the earlier half of the present century. With this view, the chapters on the Brunswick Festival, those on Music in Berlin, Leipsic, and Dresden, which made part of my former work, have been revised with great care. Many portions of them have been altogether re-written, and large additions made: it being inevitable that in a record which aspired (within its own conditions) at completeness, certain prominent subjects should be touched upon, certain changes noted, certain reputations discussed. But though the revision has been sedulous, and though the new matter introduced is considerable, there has been no modification of judgment—no restatement of original impressions.

A trifle of tobacco-smoke to be swallowed allowed for, the drive from Brunswick to Halberstadt was pleasant enough. The afternoon was glorious—the perfection of autumn weather— and the road offers some agreeable objects. Between Brunswick and Wolfenbuttel stands the Duke's country-house of Richmond, which is apparently as English in its Elizabethan style, and in the trimness of the rich garden round it, as in its name. Then the trees on either side of the way were hung with a profusion of apples, plums, and pears, glowing with every sunny colour of the season, and so appetizing as to make it positively disappointing that, at the first change of horses, no other refection was to be procured than a cup of coffee and a cigar. Every trench-bank and field enclosure, too, showed a roadside Flora of poppies, campanulas, and huge mulleins, gay enough to attract any eye that is sensitive to rich colour. Not long after Wolfenbuttel was left behind, the Brocken began to rise on the horizon; — and what is there in the world so engaging to the fancy as watching the gradual growth of a hill,—more especially if the hill have a name and a legend?

My companions in the schnellpost were cheerful and good-natured. While waiting under the vine which clothes the wall of the Brunswick post-house, we had become very sociable. As we jogged on, we discussed the Festival just over, and agreed that Mendelssohn was the musical hope of modern Germany.

Be the pilgrim musician or amateur, gentle or simple, humourist or journalist or novelist,–let no one within a hundred miles of the place miss the Leipsic Fair. The town in itself has a quaint, cheerful, and friendly appearance. Within the walls, high richly-decorated houses and old churches seem almost toppling over each other, so thickly are they set. Without, where the ramparts were, is an irregular pleasure-ground, spreading out in some places to such a respectable amplitude as to secure privacy for the walker. Beyond this belt is another ring, made up of houses, some of them set in gardens, richly dressed and full of flowers; the prettiest, most inviting residences which kind hearts and distinguished musicians could find. There in 1839 1840 and I found that cheerful, simple, unselfish, and intelligent artistic life which many have been used to imagine as universally German. Leipsic has no court to stiffen its social circles into formality, or to hinder its presiding spirits from taking free way : on the other hand, it possesses a University to stir its intelligences, a press busy and enterprising, and a recurrence of those gatherings which bring a representative of every class of society in Europe together. These last can hardly pass over–be they for mere moneygetting, be they for mere merry-making– without disturbing the settlement of that stagnant and pedantic egotism into which the strongest of minds are apt to sink when the wheel of life moves too slowly, or the circle of cares is too narrow.

“You must wait for our grand operas till the review is over, when the court comes back from Potsdam, and the orchestra is in full force,” was in 1839 the unanimous answer to my complaint against the weak and languid performance of “Der Freischutz:”—“They do some of Gluck's magnificently; and Spontini's ‘La Vestale’ and ‘Fernand Cortez.’ ”— “And which of Marschner's?” —“None.” “And Weber's ‘Euryanthe?’”— “Very rarely:” and out came the hundredth tale of cabal and court predilection. From all I heard, I might as well,—in indulgence of my intense curiosity as to antique German Opera, have bespoken “La Costanza e Fortezza,”— the composition by Fux, performed in the open air at Prague one hundred and twenty years ago, on the coronation of Charles VII. as King of Bohemia; which Quantz described to Dr. Burney as being in the old church style, coarse and dry, but at the same time “grand” and as having “a better effect, perhaps, with so immense a band, and in such an immense space, than could have been produced by more delicate compositions.”

As regarded the slighter German works of the day,—the operas of Glaser, and Lortzing, and Conradin Kreutzer, I suspect I might have waited for the return of King Sebastian, before I should have been treated to anything of the kind at the Grand Opera in 1839.

The last chapter of a record of holidays., each one of which has been marked with some new pleasure, is of itself a mournful one to write. It becomes doubly so, when its subject is a last meeting with one whose death in the prime of every blessing which makes life desirable has stripped holiday-time to come of its freshest musical interest and chiefest hope. There are many besides myself to whom Germany and German music are gravely, perhaps irreparably, changed by the untimely death of Mendelssohn.

I passed the three last days of August, 1847, beside him at Interlachen in Switzerland, very shortly before his return to Leipsic, and that fatal attack of illness which ended in his death there on the fourth of November. He looked aged and sad;–and stooped more than I had ever before seen him do; but his smile had never been brighter, nor his welcome more cordial. It was early in the morning of as sunny and exhilarating a day as ever shone on Switzerland, that we got to Interlachen ; and then and there I must see the place and its beauties.–“ We can talk about our business better out of the house:” – and forth we went, – at first up and down under the walnut trees, in sight of the Jungfrau, until, by degrees, the boarding-houses began to turn out their inhabitants.

Among the stations which the pilgrim of Music in Germany might conceive himself bound to visit is the pleasant town of Cassel. The same reasons, however, as would tempt me entirely to avoid the subject, were it possible, have made that little capital a shrine unvisited by me. To write of an excellent man–a worthy musician still living, and still pursuing the career of honourable industry in creation–is not easy for one who conceives that the influence which such a celebrity has exercised on his art in Europe is already proved to have been partial or curiously transitory. But it is not admissible, when treating of modern German music, to pass over the career and works of Dr. Spohr–such utter silence being more disrespectful to the artist's self, and more offensive to his admirers, than the most qualified admiration could possibly be.

The secrets of the temporary charm exercised over most lovers of German art by Dr. Spohr's compositions, and of the no less general sequel, a gradual disenchantment with respect to them, are not difficult to unriddle, if we consider the strange union of polished richness of manner and meagreness of idea which the bulk of his music presents ; and if we recollect, that whereas manner fascinates admiration, it is the union of imagination and thought–it is matter, in short– that retains respect.

The early summer of 1846 was a great year for the Rhine Land and its adjacent district; since then the Lower Rhenish Festival at Aix la Chapelle was conducted by Mendelssohn, and starred by Mddle. Jenny Lind; and within a fortnight afterwards was celebrated at Liege the “Fête Dieu” for which Mendelssohn's “Lauda Sion” was written.

The latter, as distinguished by the performance of a new and important composition, could entice H – and myself out of London, though the date was the middle of June; and though, owing to the carelessness and apathy of continental announcement on like occasions, our sudden journey had to be risked without any clear idea whether or not we might arrive in time for the first performance of the new work. All, however, went well. A more lovely midnight never shone on Italy than the one which lighted us down the brimming Thames, among a fleet of vessels, rapidly gliding down to the sea in the broad moonshine. Ostend looked less shabby, less extortionate, less rudely comfortless than usual, in the early afternoon; and Louvain, with its fantastically rich Town Hall overhanging our quiet, comfortable inn, made a capital sleeping- place. On reaching St. Martin's, at Liege, the next morning, in time for the commencement of the show, all sense of flurry and fever was at once dissipated by our hearing that the new hymn was reserved for the vesper celebrations of the day.

It was about the year 1839, that a stir began to be made in Europe by the tour of one of the greatest pianists that ever lived: whose genius, however, has been manifested more remarkably without, than within, the circles of strict and orderly art. I need hardly name Dr. Liszt. There have been few things in executive music in any respect comparable to his public career, which may be here spoken of, because it is understood to have closed so far as exhibition is concerned, and to be merged in enterprises of creative and critical activity. Brilliant in his wit, extravagant in his habits of life and opinion, courted for his personal fascination by every one who is greatest in rank and choicest in intellect, as Dr. Liszt has been, from his prodigious youth upward,–the fine judgment and the firm resolution which have enabled him to see that there is a time for every thing–a time to give up exhibition, and to enter upon more meditative pursuits–to cease from display at the moment when his popularity was the highest, when no rival was in hearing–I may say more, in being–such a whim of wisdom (if whim it be) must be commemorated as among the most remarkable passages and traits of his remarkable life and character.

At the time I refer to, on the continent of Europe Dr. Liszt commanded the whole world of gentle and simple listeners as no other instrumentalist ever commanded it before him.