Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Overture, The Fair Melusine, Op 32 (1833)

Mendelssohn thought his Fair Melusine overture “the best” and “most intimate” thing he had ever produced, an opinion shared, as he informed his beloved sister Fanny in a letter, by many of the people who heard him conduct it in Leipzig in 1836. On the other hand, he was irked by an excessively descriptive review of it by a German critic, whose references to red coral, green sea-beasts, magic castles, and deep seas were, he complained, “all rubbish.”

Yet Melusine is undoubtedly a magical piece, sufficiently watery in its imagery to incorporate an unmistakable foretaste of the rippling prelude to Das Rheingold, in which the notoriously anti-semitic Wager paid direct tribute to a composer he professed to despise. While writing Melusine, Mendelssohn was in fact a resident of the Rhineland, working in Dusseldorf, conducting at the Lower Rhine Festival, developing his talents as a Sunday landscape painter and, on one occasion, bathing naked in the river when the Queen of Bavaria’s boat suddenly sailed round a bend. Well, at least his distinguished musical admirer Queen Victoria was not on board.

THE QUEEN OF BAVARIA. 43 

....Then they sang four-part songs, and, among others, one that 
I gave to Woringen last year at the Musical Festival, 
called " Musikantenpriigelei," the transcriber (one of 
the players and singers present.) having copied it for his 
own benefit at the time, and coolly produced it on this 
occasion, which, indeed, I could not myself help laugh- 
ing at. Then they all vowed that this was the most 
delightful evening of their whole lives; then they 
began to wrangle again a little, as a proof of the strong 
effect my Peel speech had made on them ; then the 
sober ones of the party, videlicet, fat Schirmer and I, 
pacified them once more, and towards midnight w r e 
separated ; they having enjoyed the wine, and I still 
more " the lovely Melusina," and next morning at six 
o'clock I was on hoiseback on my way to Saaran. A 
couple of charming days they were ! 

Dear mother, I saw the Queen of Bavaria, but not in 
state. I was' seated in a boat, and just going to jump 
into the Rhine with two friends, when her Majesty 
arrived in her steamboat. As none of us possessed any 
swimming attire, so were not in a very fit state to 
appear at Court, we sprang just a tempo into the water 
as she came nearer, and thence saw all the ceremonies, 

and how Graf S presented the clergy and the Grene- 

rals, and how the senat 6 populusque Diisseldorfiensi < 



44 MENDELSSOHN'S LETTERS. 

stood on shore and made music. I had no opportunity 
of seeing the Queen again ; but now I must really con- 
elude, having gossiped at a great rate. Farewell, my 
dear parents 1 

FELIX M. B.