Mendelssohn's Boyhood.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 406, 28 September 1889, Page 3

Mendelssohn's Boyhood.

In the month of May, 1821, Sir Julius Benedict, then a young musical student^ was walking in the streets of Berlin with his* friend and master Yon Weber, the author of ' Der Freischute,' when a beautiful boy with brilliant eyes, auburn locks, clustering round hia shoulders, and a pleasant smile on his lips, ran up to them. Weber introduced the young people, and then lefb them, as he had to attend a rehearsal. Benedict had already heard of Mendelssohn at Dresden. The boy caught hold of his hand, and made him run a race to his own home. There Benedict had to play all that he could remember of his master's opera. Mendelssohn in return gave trom memory such of Bach's figures or Cramer's exercise, as the visitor could name. When they next met Mendelssohn was seated on a footstool writing mu&ic. Benedict inquired what ib was. Mendelssohn answered gravely, ' I am finishing my new quartette for piano and &bringed instruraenbs.' Looking over his shoulder Benedict saw ' as beautiful a score as if it had been written by the most skilful copyist.' It was the quartette in C minor, published afterwards as Opus I. Whilst he was wondering, Mendelssohn ran to the piano, where he went over all the music which Benedict had played for him three or four days before. 'Then,' says Benedict, ' forgetting quartettes and Weber, down we went into the garden, he clearing high hedges with a leap, running, singing, or climbing up trees like a squirrel — the very image of health and happiness.' — ' London Quarterly.'