Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Felix

referring to his piano playing and their last meeting in Dessau, discussing musical fads, stating that he would rather follow his own path and avoid the evil of becoming distracted by superficialities, noting that this latter is a criticism he would level at many present-day composers, including himself, observing that he is considering reducing his travelling so that he might concentrate on his own progress and less on the opinions of others; in the second half of the letter Mendelssohn discusses a planned performance of his Walpurgisnacht by his correspondent, stating that if this is scheduled not too early in autumn, the parts for the work will probably have been printed, noting that the engraving of the piano score and the vocal parts will start very soon, and adding that if the engraving of the instrumental parts should be delayed, he would be glad to send him the manuscript, provided that these are not in the hands of the engraver; in a final paragraph he informs him that he has passed on his regards to the Schumanns and has been asked to to return them most warmly

...Aber eben deswegen scheint mir das beste, seinen eigenen Weg ruhig weiter zu gehen, und sich hauptsächlich vor einem Tagesübel zu hüten, das Sie unter denen welche Sie nennen nicht mit anführen, das aber gewiss auch vielen Schaden thut: vor der Zersplitterung und Zerstreuung im Aeusserlichen. Das ist ein Vorwurf, den ich den meisten jetzigen Künstlern machen möchte, und mir selbst oft auch mehr, als mir lieb ist...   

3 pages, 8vo (22 x 13.5cms), Leipzig, 7 July, 1843, light creasing, some very slight spotting; together with an envelope addressed in an unknown hand to "Herrn Franz von Mendelssohn", a card folder inscribed by Toscanini ("Lettera autografa di Felix Mendelssohn...") and a modern typed transcription and translation (5)

MWV D 3, p.76

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
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A fine letter to the Hamburg composer and conductor Georg Dietrich Otten (1806-1890), in which Mendelssohn expounds on the fads of the time and sets out his own composing philosophy. Mendelssohn's ballad for solo voices, mixed choir and orchestra Die erste Walpurgisnacht, referred to in the letter and which sets a text by Goethe, was provisionally completed in 1832 and first performed in Berlin on 10 January 1833. It achieved, however, its final form only ten years later: the first performance in this ultimate form taking place in Leipzig on 2 February 1843. The score, the vocal score, and the vocal and instrumental parts were published in Leipzig by F. Kistner in 1844.