![MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847). Autograph letter signed (‘Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’) to a female correspondent (‘My dear Madam’), 4 Hobart Place, Eaton Square, [London], 30 April 1847.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2018/CKS/2018_CKS_16018_0077_000(mendelssohn_bartholdy_felix_autograph_letter_signed_to_a_female_corres095405).jpg?w=1)
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MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, Felix (1809-1847). Autograph letter signed (‘Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’) to a female correspondent (‘My dear Madam’), 4 Hobart Place, Eaton Square, [London], 30 April 1847.
In English. 1½ pages, 180 x 110mm, bifolium.
Mendelssohn shifts dinner plans to hear the 'Swedish Nightingale', Jenny Lind, with whom he was infatuated, sing her London debut in Robert le Diable: ‘Tuesday next, I had for the moment forgotten that I had promised to be present on that night at the Opera House when the Debut of my friend Jenny Lind is to take place. May I therefore ask whether 6 ½ o’clock instead of 7 would suit you?...’
The close friendship between Mendelssohn and Jenny Lind was long a source of speculation: the music critic, Henry Chorley, with whom Mendelssohn attended the opera that evening later wrote later that ‘I see as I write the smile [of] Mendelssohn, whose enjoyment of Mdlle. Lind's talent was unlimited’. Recent scholarship finally clarified the matter, confirming that ‘Mendelssohn wrote passionate love letters to Jenny Lind entreating her to join him in an adulterous relationship and threatening suicide as a means of exerting pressure upon her’ (Biddlecombe, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 83 (2013)). Lind was devastated by Mendelssohn’s premature death just months later in November 1847, later setting up a scholarship in his name.
In English. 1½ pages, 180 x 110mm, bifolium.
Mendelssohn shifts dinner plans to hear the 'Swedish Nightingale', Jenny Lind, with whom he was infatuated, sing her London debut in Robert le Diable: ‘Tuesday next, I had for the moment forgotten that I had promised to be present on that night at the Opera House when the Debut of my friend Jenny Lind is to take place. May I therefore ask whether 6 ½ o’clock instead of 7 would suit you?...’
The close friendship between Mendelssohn and Jenny Lind was long a source of speculation: the music critic, Henry Chorley, with whom Mendelssohn attended the opera that evening later wrote later that ‘I see as I write the smile [of] Mendelssohn, whose enjoyment of Mdlle. Lind's talent was unlimited’. Recent scholarship finally clarified the matter, confirming that ‘Mendelssohn wrote passionate love letters to Jenny Lind entreating her to join him in an adulterous relationship and threatening suicide as a means of exerting pressure upon her’ (Biddlecombe, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 83 (2013)). Lind was devastated by Mendelssohn’s premature death just months later in November 1847, later setting up a scholarship in his name.
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