with Todd and Cooper, RLAM. ""'With True Esteem and Friendship': The Correspondence of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Louis Spohr"." Journal of Musicological Research 29.2-3 (2010): 171-259. [doi]
(last updated on 2024/04/24)
Author's Comments:
The first study and edition of the Mendelssohn-Spohr letters (in German and English), which appeared in a special Mendelssohn issue that Michael Cooper and I edited in honor of the retirement of Peter Ward Jones, former curator of Western musical manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Abstract:
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Louis Spohr, two of the most influential musical figures of Restoration musical culture in the German lands, exchanged detailed letters about some of the most important issues of their day. Most of this correspondence has remained unpublished. Thirty-nine letters exchanged by these two composers are presented in English translation and the original German. The letters contain pithy discussions of individual works of both composers - Mendelssohn's St. Paul and Elijah, the symphony-cantata Lobgesang, his "Scottish" and "Italian" Symphonies, and the Melusine Overture; as well as Spohr's oratorio Des Heilands letzte Stunden, his "Historical" Symphony, and the Tochter der Luft Overture, among others. The letters also collectively offer insight into general aspects of mid-nineteenth-century musical life, such as recommending and hiring singers and instrumentalists, arranging for the performance of new music and concert programming generally, the politics of libretto creation for nineteenth-century oratorios and operas, and the state of current musical affairs, especially where the revival of earlier music and the issues facing the historicist movement are concerned. Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
