The next concert by Mr. T. Tertius Noble's talented body of musicians is announced for Monday next, and the programme will appropriately consist largely of works by Mendelssohn, the present year being the centenary of the composer's birth, he having been born on February 3rd, 1809. The pieces selected are the violin concerto, in which the solo part will be taken by Mr. P. V. Sharman, who has previously appeared with much success in the city. Mr. Sharman, it may be interesting to point out, forms a direct link with the cornposer, having studied in Berlin under the great violinist Joachim, who in turn at the age of twelve made the acquaintance of Mendelssohn. The Hebrides, or Fingal's Cave Overture, was composed in 1830, and was largely inspired by the composer's journey through the romantic scenery of the Western Highlands. In one of his letters he gives twenty bars of music, "to show how extraordinarily the place has affected me," and these were afterwards used to form the commencement of the overture.
The Italian Symphony, which bears the date March 13th, 1833, is one of the composer's happiest efforts, and is an exceedingly bright and cheerful work. Mendelssohn is, of course, best known to the "man in the street" as the composer of "Elijah," the "Lieder ohne Wortc," and the "Wedding March," the latter being composed at the early age of seventeen and a half, but popular as these works are, it is probable his chamber music and orchestral works constitute the greater reason for his exalted place among the composers of the last century. His style, though differing but little from that of his classical predecessors, is characterised by a vein of melody peculiarly his own, and easily distinguishable by those who have studied his works. His elastic development of the sonata form allied to a method of counterpoint closely modelled on Sebastian Bach, enabled him to invent a new style no less original than that of Schubert or Weber, and no less remarkable as the embodiment of canons already consecrated by classical authority than as a special manifestation of individual genius. It is thus that Mendelssohn stands before us as at the same time a champion of conservatism and as an apostle of progress, and it is by virtue of these two apparently incongrous phases of his artistic character that his influence and example have been so beneficent in their effect.
The other items in the programme will be the overture to Figaro (Mozart), and two short pieces by Jarnefeldt, a contemporary Finnish composer.
In connection with the Symphony concert the following pleasant little anecdote may be of interest. During the summer of 1842 the King of Prussia had conferred on Mendelssohn, in company with Liszt, Meyerbeer and Rossini, the great honour of the "Ordre pour le Merite," and the Order reached him at Frankfort. Shortly after it arrived, he was taking a walk with a party of friends across the bridge at Offenbach. One of them (Mr. Speyer) stayed behind to pay the toll for the rest. "Is not that," said the tollkeeper, "the Mr. Mendelssohn whose music we sing at our Society?" "It is." "Then, if you please, I should like to pay the toll for him myself." On rejoining the party Mr. Speyer told Mendelssohn what had happened. He was enormously pleased. "H'm," said he, "I like that better than the Order."