My Recollections of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and His Letters to Me

ISBN-13: 9781108068857 / Niemiecki / Miękka / 2013 / 322 str.

Eduard Devrient; Natalia Macfarren

Opis

Actor and baritone Eduard Devrient (1801 77) first met Felix Mendelssohn (1809 47) in 1822, and they remained close friends thereafter. During his lifetime, Mendelssohn achieved celebrity status as a composer, virtuoso pianist and conductor, and it was Devrient who secured in 1829 the famous performance in Berlin, under Mendelssohn's direction, of the St Matthew Passion, which began the Bach revival. First published in German in 1869, this work is reissued here in the English translation of the same year by Natalia Macfarren (1827 1913), singer and wife of the composer Sir George Macfarren. Her work as a translator included the first English versions of Wagner's Lohengrin and Verdi's Rigoletto. Although Devrient does not always exactly reproduce the correspondence, particularly where Mendelssohn is critical of others, the letters and commentary here serve to illuminate the development of a great composer."