Anecdotes of Great Musicians/Anecdote 143
143.—MENDELSSOHN AT WORK.
Bach used to call composers who could do nothing at writing music without hearing it first on an instrument by a peculiar name. He dubbed them "harpsichord knights." Mendelssohn belonged to a different order of knighthood. A friend once called on him, and finding him engaged in writing music excused himself and offered to call again. But Mendelssohn would not hear of it. He had the gentleman come into his studio, and there carried on an animated conversation with him, all the while going on with his work. But let the caller speak of his visit:—
"I remained, and we talked on all kinds of subjects, he continuing to write the whole time. But he was not copying, for there was no paper but that on which he was writing. The work whereon he was busy was the grand overture in C major. It was a score for full band. He began with the uppermost stave, slowly drew a bar line, leaving a good amount of room and then extended the line to the bottom of the page. He next filled in the second, then the third stave, and so on, with pauses and partly with notes. On coming to the violins, it was evident why he had left so much space for the measure. There was a figure requiring considerable room. The longer melody in this part was not treated differently from the other instruments; but like the other parts had its bar given it, and had to wait at the end of one measure till its turn came in the next.
During all this there was no looking forward or backward, no comparing, no humming over, or anything of the sort. The pen kept going steadily on, slowly and carefully, it is true, but without pausing, and we never ceased talking. The "copying out" therefore, as he called it, meant that the whole composition had been so worked out in his mind that he beheld it there as if it were actually lying before him."