MENDELSSOHN'S PHENOMENAL MEMORY

Perhaps no musician has had so fascinating a childhood as that which fell to the lot of Mendelssohn. Stories of his life in Hamburg read more like fairy tales than facts, yet, nevertheless, all writers arc agreed as to the facts, and there can be little doubt that Mendelssohn’s childhood was ideal. Sir Julius Benedict has preserved his own boyish recollections of his first meeting with Mendelssohn. This took place in Berlin, at a time when Benedict and Weber were walking along the street. When Mendelssohn saw them he ran towards them, giving them a most hearty and friendly greeting.

"I shall never forget the impression of that day on beholding that beautiful youth," says Benedict, with his auburn hair clustering in ringlets round his shoulders, the look of his brilliant, clear eyes and the smile of innocence and candor on his lips.

Weber left the two boys together, and they made their way it Mendelssohn's home, where he was intro­duced to the mother of Felix as "a pupil of Weber’s who knows a great deal of his music to the new opera." Benedict was forced to play until his memory of the score of Freyschutz was exhausted, and Mendelssohn played from memory whatever Bach fugues or Cramer exercises Benedict could suggest. Benedict concludes his account in the following way: "At last we parted not without a promise to meet again. On my very next visit, I found him seated on a footstool, before a small table, writing, with great ernestness, some music. On my asking what he was about, he replied gravely, 'I am finishing my new Quartet for piano and stringed instruments.'

"I could not resist my own boyish curiosity to examine his composition, and, looking over his shoulder, saw as beautiful a score as if it had been written by the most skilful copyist. It was his first Quartet in C minor, published afterwards as Op. 1. But whilst I was lost in admiration and astonishment at beholding the work of a master, written by the hand of a boy, all at once he sprang up from his seat, and in his playful manner, ran to the pianoforte, performing note for note all the music from Freyschutz, which, three or four days previously, he had heard me play, and asking. 'How do you like this chorus?' 'What do you think of this air?' 'Do you not admire this overture?' and so on. Then, forgetting quartets and Weber, down he went into the garden, he clearing high hedges with a leap, running, singing or climbing up the trees like a squirrel---the very image of health and happiness.”