FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY AS "PETER MEFFERT OF BUXTEHUDE”

 “Young Peter Meffert of Buxtehude before his first journey to England” is the inscription in English written on a profile image, described as a caricature, of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847).  The image is allegedly that of the twenty-year old composer as he was about to depart alone in April, 1829, from Hamburg for his first visit to England.[1]  The statement that “Peter Meffert was a nickname he gave himself” during trips to England in the 1840s was repeated in articles about Felix in The Musical Times from 1891 to 1909 – the earliest known public acknowledgments about the nickname.[2]  What was then probably not known, and therefore not mentioned in The Musical Times articles, was the document showing a much earlier use of this appellation by Felix – the so-called caricature in Elvers’ book.  Felix used his nickname of Peter Meffert on autographs and an album-leaf he inscribed, on June 21, 1842, June 24, 1842, and July 11, 1842 during a later visit to England.[3]  The album-leaf was, in fact, his piano sketch Bärentanz (Bear Dance) and is part of the charming story of his relationship with the children of his English hosts, the Benecke family, and with the children as the sketch’s dedicatees.[4]  The handwriting on the caricature, the autographs and the album leaf is identical.

On March 21, 1816, seven-year-old Felix Mendelssohn was baptized Jacob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Berlin’s Jerusalemskirche.  Along with Felix, his two sisters, Fanny (1805-1847) and Rebecka (1811-1858), and brother Paul (1812-1874) were also baptized at the same time.  They were all now most probably Lutherans as was Felix according to the basic religious instruction for his 1825 confirmation.  The conversion of the family went in stages since Felix’s parents Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy themselves waited until 1822 for their own baptism in Frankfurt am Main, to spare the feelings, it is said, of Lea’s mother.[5]  Before and after his conversion, Felix’s contact with the secular Jewish community of Berlin -- mostly converted -- was conveyed through his parents’ large extended families and their wide circle of friends and business acquaintances.  Based on reports he read and heard, on July 8, 1829, Abraham wrote to Felix in London asking Felix to use Bartholdy instead of Mendelssohn as his family name: “If Mendelssohn is your name, you are ipso facto a Jew.”[6]  

Where did the name Peter Meffert come from?  What did the phrase “of Buxtehude” mean?  To the first part of the inscription, one immediate answer directly contemporary with Felix’s era (just two years before he embarked on his journey), was the name of Karl Töpfer’s title character in his 1827 fantasy novel Muck-Kobold und Peter Meffert, which can be translated as Grumble-Imp and Peter Meffert.  The Berlin-born Karl Friedrich Gustav Töpfer (1792-1871) left Berlin for Hamburg in 1822 where he lived until his death, and was no relation to the prosperous and well-connected Töpfer family of Hamburg.  Karl Töpfer was a traveler and had several careers as a dramatist, newspaper owner, composer, guitar virtuoso with a number of published collections of guitar music, and a novelist.[7]  His 1827 novel, an all-but-forgotten remnant of German Romantic literature, was a blend of the humorous and the dreadful, the quotidian and the didactic.  It was a novel that juxtaposed insightful social commentary with the phantasmagoric.[8]  It was a series of mixed tales of mischief making and rescue in the relationship of the fantasy imp and the human do-gooder Peter Meffert. 

From early childhood Felix’s education was excellent, his having had the benefit of the best private tutors his wealthy father selected.  By providing Felix over the years with peerless musical and academic educators he was prepared for admission to the University of Berlin.  Felix matriculated and attended lectures from 1827 to early 1829 but did not graduate with a university degree.[9]  He was an exceedingly attentive student but he did not neglect his music.  He was an active and busy composer and conductor prior to his first trip in 1829 to England, which despite his many European travels as a youth, was his first sea journey from the Continent and the start of a Grand Tour promoted and financed by his father.  It is not known if during his university years Felix read Muck-Kobold und Peter Meffert or Töpfer’s earlier work Zeichnungen aus meinem Wanderleben.  If he did read Muck-Kobold, he probably would have enjoyed it since it was in the vein of the macabre tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) and the poetic-grotesque works of Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825), known by the pen name Jean Paul, both highly popular authors during and after their lifetimes and still better known today than Töpfer.

There is no evidence that Felix read E.T.A. Hoffmann; there is nothing in his letters mentioning Hoffmann.  Considering that Robert Schumann (1810-1856), born one year after Felix, had read Hoffmann as well as Jean Paul and became greatly enamored of Hoffmann’s fantasy tales, we cannot dismiss the possibility that young Felix also read Hoffmann.  Hoffmann, a jurist, writer and composer, was known personally by Ludwig Berger (1777-1839), Felix’s piano teacher; by Wilhelm Hensel (1794-1861), who made a portrait sketch of Hoffmann in 1821 - Hensel was Felix’s future brother-in-law -; and by Dorothea von Schlegel (1764-1839), Felix’s aunt.  In 1821, Felix and his parents were at the Berlin premiere of Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Der Freischutz.  Others in the audience included Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) – whose portrait was drawn by Wilhelm Hensel in 1829 - and E.T.A Hoffmann.  Hensel, Berger and Hoffmann all frequented the famous Berlin musical salon of Elisabeth von Stägemann and her husband.  Hoffmannn also knew Carl Friedrich Zelter, Felix’s composition teacher (see below, page 20).  Given this web of social relationships around the Mendelssohn family, Hoffmann’s name and reputation would have had some resonance for the young reader.[10]

Felix was also a faithful reader of Jean Paul throughout his life and he had a copy of Jean Paul’s Flegeljahre with him as he readied for his departure from Hamburg.[11]  Felix catalogued his library in 1844 in preparation for a move from Berlin to his final home in Leipzig.  While he listed ownership of thirty-three volumes of Jean Paul’s works, neither Hoffmann nor Töpfer appear in his catalogue.  It is noted that many works on music, famed literary classics and some great contemporary writers such as Heine are absent from Felix’s library.[12]  What Felix may have read as an adolescent and young man are not available in the collection of the more mature and, by 1844, more famous man.

The historical answer to the origins of Peter Meffert lies in 19th century German philology and dialect studies.  A number of scholarly works in German and English attest to the origins, meaning and popularity of the name Peter Meffert.  In fact, the appellation seemed to weigh heavily toward describing a dimwit, with geographical variants that were not all negative.[13]  The brief history is as follows: Card playing was popular almost from its first existence in the early 14th century, with the playing cards arriving from the Middle East into Europe where they became known as Saracen or Mamluk or Arabic cards.  The Europeans started to make their own cards and after the passage of time, local regulations or outright bans on playing cards (because of their almost immediate association with gambling and irreligion) were finally abolished.  These relaxations in the law were, of course, a spur to increased card playing.  The cards were known in every country, and the variety of forms was extensive.  Pieter Mefferdt was a 17th century manufacturer of playing cards in Amsterdam where local regulations and taxes on cards and cardplaying were quite prohibitive.  His trade extended far beyond the boundaries of Holland, his product was quite popular, and his name became known as Peter Meffert in German-speaking areas.  See ADDENDUM for his commercial impact in Amsterdam.

Meffer(d)t’s playing cards were sought after and ubiquitous like “Hans in allen Gassen,” or as Americans might say, like “Jack of all trades.”  This well-meaning Pieter Mefferdt was someone who acted fast and got things done.[14]  However, Peter Meffert gained the personification of an essentially nosey nobody who could be a qualified somebody everywhere, like the playing cards.[15]  The personification varied according to area and district.  In Bremen, a Peter Meffert was not too bright.  In Leipzig, he was what today we might call a ‘wise guy’ whose name was used in fast and witty repartée in order that one not be pinned down to a direct answer.  The response “Peter Meffert!” meant “none of your business!”  In Thuringia, he was simple-minded.[16]  In Berlin, Peter Meffert was a typical name for a somebody, possibly because he was everywhere.[17]  However, another Berlin personification of Peter Meffert was that of a “real Berliner” – a man who stinks (Gestank).[18]

Töpfer, the Berliner who became a Hamburger (the reverse of the Mendelssohn family’s experience), was the beneficiary of the name’s origins and so he is part of the historical trail.  The reason for Töpfer’s choice of this name is not really known except Peter Meffert seemed to have been the nickname for Everyman, known in the American appellation as Joe Doaks – an average nice guy who was everybody and nobody.  Peter Meffert had made a deep and lasting cultural inroad across northern Europe in the span of a century and a half.  Peter Meffert was also a fictional character in the rising period of realism in German literature, in Gustav Freytag’s (1816-1895) novel Die Ahnen (The Ancestors), which was published as a series between 1872 and 1880.  The name was known and used, and retained its literary currency well into the later 19th century.

As he was about to leave for England in April 1829, did Felix see himself as a young somebody or as a nobody?  It would be difficult to imagine Felix as having so little regard for himself as a nobody, especially since by age twenty he had developed a reputation as one of the most accomplished young musicians, conductors and composers in Germany.  In fact, on March 11, 1829, Felix conducted Berlin’s Singakademie in the first albeit shortened performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion since ca. 1742 (and not since the work’s premiere in 1727, as has been alleged).[19]  Felix’s active promotion and conducting of this performance was a great success.  Felix must have known that he was a somebody – a far more refined, educated, accomplished and affluent man than the Peter Mefferts who appeared in various guises around Germany.  Yet there is the famous quotation attributed to Felix by his actor-singer friend Eduard Devrient who helped closely in the preparation of the St. Matthew Passion: “And [to think] that it must be an actor and a Jew-boy (Judenjunge) who restore to the people the greatest Christian musical work!”[20]

Despite many travels with and without family up to 1829, but always a land journey, Felix was facing his first trip away from the European Continent to cross the North Sea and English Channel alone, leaving his family behind.  He had friends awaiting his arrival in London, which was the first of ten visits he made to England in his lifetime.  In fact, his former teacher and now mentor and friend, Ignaz Moscheles, was the recipient of some letters prior to the April, 1829 departure in which Felix asked the older man for guidance and advice.  In two letters from Berlin, dated January 10, 1829 and March 26, 1829, Felix does not express any profound misgivings; he seems to be thinking through the best arrangements for his visit to England and the subsequent travel.[21]  Despite the intervening years, when his youth was past, at the age of thirty-three (1842) he still kept the nickname of Peter Meffert.  However, the first appearance of the nickname was, as far we know, on the caricature in relation to his visit to England in 1829.  While the historical origins of Felix’s nickname are reasonably known, his decision to adopt the name cannot be fully explained as it stands.  Absent any writing by Felix about his use of the nickname or by another person who knew him well, we can only speculate about his reasons for using it.  The inscription on the so-called caricature should be considered part of the totality of the image he inscribed.  The young man, head- only facing left in full profile, is seen with a thin scraggly beard and mustache, and long thinning, straight, almost shoulder-length hair.  He is wearing what appears to be a high, pointed, knitted stocking cap topped by a very small tassel at the cap’s point.  The cap worn by Peter Meffert may reveal something more about the idea or intent behind the caricature.  The cap does not fully resembles the historical Judenhut (Jew’s hat), the yellow conical, pointed hat of medieval times, from the 11th century, later mandated by the Church in the 13th century to be worn by Jews when travelling beyond their ghettoes; or the classic Phrygian cap - symbol of freedom and liberty; or the Pileus of ancient times - the precursor of the Phrygian cap.  Yet again, Meffert’s cap also resembles a sleeping cap although worn by the wide-awake Peter.  Meffert’s cap seems to be a hybrid - a small tasseled somewhat conical cap with rolled edges at its bottom - resembling to some degree the Judenhut which historically represented separation and otherness (and evidence of deserved suppression) and the Phrygian cap of the ancient manumitted Greek and Roman slave.  If this was a subtle visual allusion to his family origins as well as a signal of his being on the threshold of newfound freedom, the cap would serve the dual purpose.  The indeterminate origins of the cap seem another piece of the iconographic puzzle designed both to hide and to reveal.

Felix was not a dandy but he was always well-dressed in accord with his own social rank and means.  There is no known image showing him with unkempt facial hair or wearing a cap such as shown in the caricature.  His hair was curly and luxuriant as a child and young man. Later on, probably around the age of thirty, he is depicted wearing Backenbart or sideburns, which were a European men’s hair fashion since the 1790s.  As the years passed his sideburns were first short and then longer, finally down to his chin.  Felix was clean shaven otherwise and almost never known to wear a mustache or beard.  A significant oil portrait shows him with a blue facial shadow indicating a man with heavy and dark facial hair, which appears strikingly in the 1845 Magnus portrait.[22]  Since Felix had a normally high forehead, a recession of his hairline was not very noticeable until a few years before his premature death at thirty-eight.  Wearing sideburns may also have been his compensation for his changing appearance as his wavy locks receded.  Several memoirs written by friends and colleagues attest to his physical appearance and dress, none of which suggest the unkempt image of the so-called caricature.

Felix’s high forehead, large nose and long face are quite apparent in images of Felix’s grandfather Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786).  Felix’s uncle Jacob Ludwig Salomon Bartholdy (1779-1825) had a high forehead and, as he got older, a receding hairline.  Uncle Jacob had a long face and chin and a large, long and very pronounced hook nose.  While a comparison of the images of Uncle Jacob and his nephew Felix are remarkable in their resemblance, Felix certainly had the far less pronounced hook.[23]

Felix would not have appeared in public anywhere and, especially, not in London society looking anything but appropriately dressed for the occasion.  Despite the ascension of George IV to the throne thus ending the Regency, the dandified Regency image of a gentleman depicted in the famous 1829 watercolor by James Warren Childe (1778-1862) was still the image that the young German visitor should look in the appropriate ensemble as he entered London society of 1829.[24]

His friend Eduard Devrient describes Felix’s fashionable clothes in Berlin, before Felix’s trip to London, especially recalling the matching “Bach uniform” the two young men wore during the period when they worked together on Bach’s St. Matthew Passion: “blue coats, white waistcoats, black neckties, black trousers, and yellow chamois-leather gloves….”[25]  Felix appeared similarly dressed for a London recital in which he describes his “grande toilette” as “very long white trousers, brown silk waistcoat, black neck-tie, and blue dress coat.”[26]  Childe’s portrait gives the appearance of a tall and very slender young gentleman although Felix was no more than five feet six inches in height (167.6 cm).  Childe portrayed Felix as an idealized London gent of the later Beau Brummell era and showed the twenty-year-old Felix without sideburns, cleanshaven, and with neatly combed, fairly straight and short hair.  Felix was never again portrayed in any apparel as colorful as in his Childe portrait.  As he matured and was depicted in later portraits, Felix became a somewhat more conservative man in his dress and he seemed to stay in approximate fashion in his clothing, as appropriate to his stature as a leading musical figure.

The caricature’s profile is not at all of the mature Felix who had a hook or bump to his otherwise straight nose, which is described in biographies and reminiscences about him as arched, Semitic or Roman.  In fact, some images of Felix exaggerate his hook nose, particularly that done by Hugo Bürkner (1818-1897).[27]  Instead, the caricature image is of a young man with a small snubbed nose whose gentle downward concave slope had no bump or hook.[28]  Like the rest of Europe, England had a history of anti-Semitic caricatures replete with images of Jews with large sagging bellies, hook noses and big lips, a history which included an array of caricatures by Thomas Rowlandson (1726-1827) and George Cruikshank (1792-1878).  Cruikshank was especially famous for his political and social caricatures and for his illustrations (signed Boz) of the early novels of Charles Dickens.  It was Cruishank who etched the illustrations and created the very first image of the loathsome Fagin for Oliver Twist.  Not even George IV was spared the acid bite of Cruikshank’s satirical barbs.  Rowlandson and Cruikshank, who are today remembered mainly for their pungent social commentary without mention of their views of English Jewry, together produced a body of anti-Semitic works that spanned the 1780s to the late 1820s - before and during Felix Mendelssohn’s lifetime.[29]  Parenthetically, contemporary images of Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) show him with fleshy lips and a large hook nose which was broad at the base, especially notable in profile images of him.  In Delacroix’s unfinished 1838 portrait of Chopin, the composer’s nose is prominent above full lips.  Chopin’s ancestry was not Jewish, rather his roots were French and Polish Catholics.[30]  Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) also had a very large nose with a bump, which was regularly caricatured in cartoons in the Paris literary and popular press.  Neither was Berlioz Jewish.  Commentary on nose size and Jewishness seemed to emerge only if the nose’s wearer was Jewish or had Jewish forebears.  For a non-Jew with a large hook nose, it mattered little as regards religion or race.

Through the thin beard one can see a prominently rounded chin on the Peter Meffert of the caricature, which does not match other authenticated full or three-quarter profiles of Felix.  In several frontal and profile portrait images, Felix is shown with a very slight cleft in his long narrow chin.  In fact, the caricature found in Elvers’ book would hardly be described as having Semitic features, whereas Felix was often described as looking Jewish.[31]  There is nothing in the caricature subject’s appearance to make the viewer who is familiar with images of the composer believe that this image or caricature is indeed Felix.  Yet, as cited in footnote 1, the German edition of the Elvers book captions the image “Humoristisches Selbstporträt,” which may not precisely equate with the definition of “Karikatur” in German (the same as caricature in English).  “Humoristisches” can mean humorous or facetious; “Selbstporträt” unmistakeably means a self-portrait.  Only the owner of the image would be able to assign the appropriate and definitive caption to this image.  The researcher is left with the necessity of accepting the given caption while examining the circumstances that gave rise to the image itself.  

Caricatures generally exaggerate one or more salient feature or characteristic of a subject for satirical effect while leaving the overall image true enough to be recognizable.  This was especially so in Mendelssohn’s time about political figures or where caricatures were used for simple entertainment in other social spheres, including anti-Jewish caricatures which were the stuff of popular amusement.  Caricatures of Felix include the cartoon in Punch, January 18, 1845, with a mild caricature of Felix wearing his “tartan trews” - an allusion to his Scottish Symphony (1829-1832) - showing beneath his Greek robe while leading the male chorus in the Invitation to Bacchus at the Covent Garden premiere of his “Antigone” in 1845; the 1896 portrayal by Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898), a rather cutting caricature of the composer as an effete Wildean; and the later gentler and more affectionate caricatures of Felix done ca. 1990 by John Minnion (b. 1949, English); the undated one by Henrik Major (1895-1948, Hungarian); the 1998 caricature of Felix conducting by Miroslav Šmíd(b.1923; Czech); and the 2003 pen and ink caricature by Dutch artist Jan Jonker, which shows Felix’s abundant hair with a side curl in an upward flip topping a long narrow face and nose and appears to be modeled after the engraving by Carl Jäeger (1833-1837) whose image achieved widespread publication.[32]  Time has softened the caricaturist’s pen.

Several other images of Felix around the time of his 1829 visit to London, besides the Childe portrait, can be used for comparison to the Elvers/Meffert image: 

A) The 1830 sketch portrait of Felix made by Joseph Schmeller (1796-1841) for Goethe.  In one aspect it is dissimilar to likenesses of Felix of that era in that Schmeller drew Felix with slightly more bulbousness at the end of his nose not seen in any other image.  Felix has short sideburns along with his usual wavy-curly hair in Schmeller’s image;
B) A portrait by Eduard Steinbrück (1802-1882), a profile painting “as he would have looked on his first visit to London,” i.e., 1829;
C) The 1831 oil portrait of Felix painted in Rome by Horace Vernet (1789-1863), the 1834 crayon and pencil drawing by Wilhelm von Schadow (1788-1862), and the 1834/1835 oil portrait by Theodor Hildebrandt (1804-1874).[33]

Comparing the Elvers caricature to portraits by Childe, Schmeller, Steinbrück, Vernet and Hildebrandt clearly show that the Elvers image is not of Felix but rather a profile of the imaginary Peter Meffert – perhaps Felix’s alter ego, an image of someone else who looked and dressed as far different from Felix as possible.

Did Felix create this image of himself in his Peter Meffert guise?  Did someone else?  Or, is it simply an image of some unknown person Felix appropriated for himself?  Why did the image appear only once - in a book of Felix’s correspondence - described in the original German edition as “Humoristisches Selbstporträt” and in the succeeding English edition as “caricature of the composer, 1829?”  We have to accept provisionally that Felix intended his inscription in his handwriting to be linked to the image.  This said, the so-called caricature’s provenance is not yet fully known so as to provide a secure authentication while the handwriting is authentically that of Felix Mendelssohn.

The Peter Meffert persona was not the only time that Felix claimed another identity.  In a letter dated August 9, 1833, while both Felix and his father were away together in London, Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1776-1835) wrote to the family in Berlin that upon his return home they were to expect a visit very soon from a new acquaintance.  This young man, wrote Abraham, went by the name of “Alphonse Lovie,” and was a “painter by profession, his forte being portraits in pen-and-ink.”  Knowing of Lea Mendelssohn’s (1777-1842) past charities and kindness to people, the family was not taken aback by Abraham’s request for the proposed visit by the young stranger.  But, of course, the surprise visitor was none other than their son and brother Felix who conspired with his father to play this joke on the family, to make the visit home even more of a surprise.[34]  

Felix had early training in art, and from his travels over the years he produced watercolor and pen-and-ink landscapes of interesting architectural sites as well as vignettes for his honeymoon album.  During his married life he sketched small domestic scenes.  He was an accomplished artist when it came to rendering nature scenes and buildings, churches and other structures.  His most notable weakness as an artist, however, was in his depictions of people; early in his sketching career he produced rather ungainly and poorly drawn life figures.[35]  The Peter Meffert caricature is not at all as ungainly or badly drawn as other self-portraits made by Felix, notably in his honeymoon diary and other domestic scenes.  One of Felix’s self-portraits, part of a group scene of nine people made during an 1842 family visit to Switzerland, borders on crude school-boy sketching although he captured his own long nose, long hair, pointed chin and sideburns.  He was observant enough an artist to know what his most prominent features were.[36]  Occasionally, under the tutelage of his artist-friend Wilhelm von Schadow, his later efforts at figure drawing showed some improvement.  Therefore, the skill of the artist who drew the 1829 caricature would call into question the identity of the artist.

The second part of the inscription to be examined is the phrase “of Buxtehude.” What does it mean?  Was Felix only amusing himself by designating Buxtehude as the place he came from?  He was born in Hamburg in 1809 but in 1811 he was taken with his family to Berlin where he grew up.[37]  For a number of years early in their marriage, his parents Abraham and Lea had a summer residence in Altona, outside of Hamburg,[38] placing the family close to the small nearby town of Buxtehude.

Then, of course, there is the composer and organist Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707) whose family originated in the town of Buxtehude but had left the locale in the early 16th century for Danish/Swedish territory.  Although born beyond the borders of Germany, Buxtehude himself eventually settled in Lübeck, about sixty-five miles northeast of Hamburg, where he was employed as a composer of Protestant sacred vocal music and organist, and where Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) came to visit him in 1705-1706, not long before Buxtehude’s death.  It was this three-month visit to Buxtehude in Lübeck that changed Bach’s own organ-playing style and especially his compositional approach to cantatas.

Felix was tutored for years by the conductor and composer Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758-1832), who was not Felix’s first music teacher by any means.  Zelter’s strict theory and composition curriculum and pedagogy relied critically on Bach.  However, Buxtehude seemed not to have been a specific or known model for Felix in Zelter’s teaching so it is difficult to discern if or when Felix ever learned of Dieterich Buxtehude and of his influence on Bach.[39]  Following in the tradition of Buxtehude and Bach, Felix himself was later known as a virtuoso organist and a reputable composer of organ sonatas and sacred cantatas in the Lutheran tradition he shared with his predecessors.  It is an intriguing and puzzling appearance of a name associated with Bach to be found in Felix’s handwriting, and around the time of the great 1829 revival by Felix of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.

Another interpretation for his using “of Buxtehude” could have been a playful though disguised homage to the city of his birth, Hamburg, by designating a town near his birthplace.  Hamburg was also the home of the new firm of Gebr. Mendelssohn & Co., founded in 1805 by Abraham and his brother Joseph, and the year in which Abraham brought his bride Lea to Hamburg to begin their married life.  Having just triumphed in the performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, was Felix playing word games (for which he was well-known among family and friends) or setting up a riddle by substituting the name of Bach’s precursor and/or that little town near Altona for the musical birthplace which Felix could claim as his own?  In effect, one place/family name may have had multiple meanings for Felix a/k/a Peter Meffert.  Few of Felix’s contemporaries, German or English, would have been able to unravel the Buxtehude place name puzzle combined with the Peter Meffert persona, if that was what Felix intended.

Felix was more than a merely obedient son to his father.  Felix respected, admired and loved Abraham deeply, and it is very likely Felix would not have spoken or written words his father would have found uncomfortably odd, strange or distasteful.  Toews raises the issue of the father-son dynamic where sometimes tensions crept into the relations between Abraham and Felix in the 1820s, as they surely must have between Abraham and his own father, Moses Mendelssohn.[40]  However, unlike Felix, the young Peter Meffert may have written odd or strange words (and in private).  Felix certainly wrote that he was “of Buxtehude” and claimed to be Peter Meffert in the inscription on the caricature.  There seems to be nothing really alarming in the words themselves. Perhaps it was a small act of rebellion, or a statement assuming his grown-up persona on the very edge of his first long journey away from family and life as he knew it in Berlin.  Perhaps it was a reminder that he was not always what he seemed to be.  Was it a subtle acknowledgment of the rising anti-Semitism in Berlin following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, even in the social and professional circles Felix was used to?[41]  Unlike the name Mendelssohn, the name Peter Meffert could hardly be ascribed to a Jew.  It belonged, in effect, to the German Everyman.  Felix gave that name to an image which would most likely never be identified as Jewish by looks or by name alone.

In January 1829, Felix’s beloved older sister and musical mentor Fanny became engaged to her long-time suitor, painter Wilhelm Hensel.  Fanny was a brilliant pianist and composer whose position within her family, class and society at large did not permit her to consider either having her work published or performing as a professional musician.  This situation has been explored by music historians and biographers of the Mendelssohn family.  Fanny’s attainments in writing Lieder and an array of solo and chamber instrumental compositions have reached fuller and deserved recognition in the late 20th and early 21st century.  There is no doubt that Felix recognized the truly accomplished musical artist his sister was.  Yet Felix maintained the paternal position noted in their father Abraham’s letters to Fanny that such a career was not suitable for a woman.[42]  Whatever feelings Felix had about cutting the ties from family as he was about to depart for England in 1829 may have been intensified by his realization that the profoundly close and deeply felt sibling and artistic relationship he had with Fanny was about to undergo another irrevocable change as she prepared for marriage and motherhood.  While in London Felix suffered a leg injury severe enough to prevent him from returning home in time for Fanny’s October wedding.

Eighteen Twenty-Nine was significant enough a year in Felix’s life that biographer Todd devotes an entire chapter to it titled “Amateur Gentleman.”[43]  Felix embarked on the paternally financed Grand Tour in 1829.  That year Felix was prolific in composing, sought after in conducting, successful in his burgeoning social life, becoming more aware of feminine charms (and flirtatious in response), growing fonder of England and the English, and continuing to nurture his growing reputation as one of the most brilliant young musical artists of his era.  With all that, Felix wrote a simple yet lovely composition in his one-act Liederspiel Heimkehr aus der Fremde, Op. 89 (Return from Abroad; known in English as Son and Stranger), from a libretto on which he collaborated with his countryman and traveling companion in England, Karl Klingemann.  Felix specifically composed the work for his parents’ silver wedding anniversary on December 26, 1829.[44]  To make the celebration a true family affair, the performers were all family members and family friends (including those who could barely sing a note) and performed privately as part of the anniversary celebration.  The use of amateur singers undoubtedly determined the level of difficulty which Felix adjusted for that particular performance; it has since been sung and recorded by professionals in its original scoring.

In brief, the Liederspiel is the story of Hermann, a prodigal who returns home from the Foreign Legion in disguise only to encounter a recently arrived vagabond - a roving peddler Kauz - who woos the prodigal’s left-behind sweetheart Lisbeth.  In wooing the forlorn maiden Kauz sings “Ich bin ein vielgereister Mann” (literally translates as “I am a much traveled man,” but in the English version the aria is “I am a roamer”), which surely applies to the characters of the prodigal, the vagabond and the composer.  Hermann outwits the shady Kauz and, in true melodramatic fashion, the prodigal gets his girl back and is restored to his grieving parents.  Felix had barely finished the work after arriving back in Berlin in early December to begin rehearsals with the family performers.  On the parental anniversary, after the Christmas celebrations of the preceding day, the premiere performance took place.

A recent problematical comment on the character of Kauz surmises: “Daß in Felix’ Liederspiel eine einzige explizit jüdische Klischee-Figur, wenn auch mit nichtjüdischem Namen, auftritt – der Hausierer Kauz, ein Außenseiter und Verlierer -, wird den aufmerksameren Zuschauern vielleicht aufgefallen sein.”[45]  [In Felix’s Liederspiel there is one explicitly Jewish stereotype character, although with a non-Jewish name, the peddler Kauz, an outsider and loser, that may have been noticeable to the more attentive spectators. (Author’s translation)].  The first spectators were, of course, Mendelssohn family members and friends, which comprised an audience of about 100 guests – and were mostly from long-time Christian or more recently converted Jewish families.  Yet another reference to the character Kauz notes his mention of Scottish bagpipes in his song “Ich bin ein vielgereister Mann” – another cue from the composer about his own very recent travels and return.[46]

Did the prodigal’s ultimate success in Felix’s Heimkehr aus der Fremde finally oust the imposter Peter Meffert (and possibly Kauz?) from Felix’s own psyche?  Only partially, it would seem, since there were those several later occasions (and all associated with England as noted above), when he used the nickname in conjunction with his own.  There is no evidence found that Felix ever used the nickname Peter Meffert anywhere but in or referring to England.  He used the name several times during his 1842 visit and exclusively in association with his visit to the Beneckes and the piano pieces he composed that year for the Benecke children.  We do not know exactly when and where the Elvers caricature was made except that it was dated by Felix’s own inscription in early 1829.  Finally: What is the complete provenance of this caricature?  Hopefully, we may one day know of this image’s history.  Beyond the mentions in The Musical Times and the inscriptions on the piano pieces, a primary source was found in which Felix makes reference by name to young Felix’s alter ego.  In his letter to Karl Klingemann, dated Leipzig, November 23, 1842, Felix asks Klingemann to send his greetings to the Benecke family, and in referring to the Benecke children, Felix writes: “oder grüss sie sonst vom Peter Meffert.”[47]

Was there no intention by Felix of allowing this untoward image to reach a wider audience?  Was it an inside joke with all the image’s elements the reverse of or far distant from reality?  Or, by indirection was Felix providing the key elements of a new and uncertain reality that extended into an unknown future?  Perhaps the appellation Peter Meffert of Buxtehude tells us something by and about Felix Mendelssohn that has been unaccounted for.


BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCE SOURCES

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 I extend my special gratitude to Prof. Larry Todd of Duke University for his comments and suggestions.  I wish to express my sincere thanks to Arezou Azad, University of Oxford, for her assistance in my navigating the byways of the University of Oxford and the City of Oxford, and for her skills in German epigraphy.

I owe grateful thanks to:
 Daniel Gloor, Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Switzerland
Alicia Larsson, Haninge, Sweden
Magda Nuovo, Kosciuszko Foundation, New York
Roland Schmidt-Hensel, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–Mendelssohn-Archiv, Berlin, Germany
Peter Silvennoinen, University of Uppsala, Sweden

ADDENDUM  
Notarial Records relating to the Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam before 1639
No. 3501
Pieter Mefferdt, manufacturer of playing cards and Simao Vas de Fontes, Portuguese merchant in Amsterdam, make the following contract of sale in advance. Starting 1 January 1627 Meffert will deliver at the end of every month 32 dozen Spanish playing cards at a price of 30 stivers a dozen for a period of two years. Mefferdt has 90 or 92 dozen ready that he may deliver immediately instead of the 64 dozen that are due for the first two months at the end of March. During these two years Mefferdt is not allowed to make or to have Spanish cards made for others, to sell them or have them sold at a fine of 100 guilders to the benefit of the poor. Should either party fail to deliver or receive and pay, he will have to pay the other party a fine of 50 guilders, and he will have to comply with the contract if that is what the other party desires. Valerius van der Hoeven and Thomas Fernandes Junior stand surety for Pieter Mefferdt and Simao Vas de Fontes respectively.

1627 January 7
Not. Arch. 394A, f. 10-10v.
Not. Jacob and Nicolaes Jacobs.

Source: Amsterdam Municipal Archives. Prepared by the staff of the Amsterdam Municipal Archives. Translations by S. Hart.  

The document is online at:
http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:qTBxNe_a_sEJ:br.geocities.com/cristaosnovos/recordsportugueseamsterdamjews.doc+%22Pieter+Mefferdt%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us&ie=UTF-8

NOTES
[1] The inscribed image of Felix is in Rudolf Elvers, ed., Felix Mendelssohn: A Life in Letters, trans. Craig Tomlinson (New York: Fromm, 1986), foll. 144, pl. 13.  The plate appeared first in the book’s German edition, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Briefe, (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1984).  In the German edition it was titled “Humoristisches Selbstporträt, 1829,” while in the English edition the image is captioned “Caricature of the composer, 1829.”  In the absence of an attribution in the illustration credits, I concluded that Rudolf Elvers is the owner.  According to Roland Schmidt-Hensel of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin where he is head of the Mendelssohn-Archiv, the self-caricature as he terms it, is most likely still in the possession of Dr. Elvers who did not respond to an inquiry in 2007 about the caricature. I am using the term caricature as it seems to have originated with the image’s owner, was used by his publishers and is further supported by Schmidt-Hensel.
[2] An untitled news item in The Musical Times, 32, no. 584 (October 1, 1891): 592;  “A Christmas Present. Historical Notes on Mendelssohn’s Opus 72,” The Musical Times, 42, no. 706 (December 1, 1901): 807;  F. G. Edwards, “Remininscences of Mendelssohn,” The Musical Times, 33, no. 594 (August 1, 1892):465-467, an extract from which appears in Roger Nichols, Mendelssohn Remembered, (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), 52-53;  “Mendelssohn in England: A Centenary Tribute,” The Musical Times, 50, no. 792, (February 1, 1909): 81-90.
[3] The June 21, 1842 inscription with Felix’s name and Peter Meffert following in parentheses is on an autograph in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, also cited in Christa Jost, “Zu den ‘Sechs Kinderstücken’ op. 72,” in Dem Stolz und der Zierde unserer Stadt. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy und Leipzig. Erster Mendelssohn-Fest IX. Internationales Gewandhaussymposium 1997 alläßlich des 150. Todestages vom FelixMendelssohn Bartholdy, ed. Wilhelm Seidel (Leipzig: Edition Peters, 2004), 197, 197n2.  The June 24, 1842 dedication from “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy / (eigentlich Peter Meffert)”, see Jost, 198, 202.  The July 11, 1842 inscription is reproduced in The Musical Times, (February 1, 1909), where following page 88 is a reproduction of the album leaf facsimile with Felix’s inscription to his small friends, the “gooseberry eaters,” signed with Felix’s full signature followed by the phrase “usually called (Peter Meffert) [sic]” - the “[sic]” appears as shown in Mendelssohn’s inscription - and is cited in Jost, 198 and 198n8.  Opus 72, no.3 is “für Edward Benecke, zur Erinnerung an Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (Peter Meffert) London 21 Juni 1842,” in Crum.1, 56/1; Op. 72, no.1 is dedicated “an Lilli Benecke zu freundliche Erinnerung an Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (eigentlich Peter Meffert) London 24 Juni 1842,” in Crum.1, 56/2.  See Adelaide Benecke, Memories of the Past, privately printed, Ballantyne Press, 1906, page 31: “Whenever he [Felix Mendelssohn] came to Manchester he, of course, stayed with my parents….  Never can I forget the charms of the stories he used to tell us of his childhood, &c, when he always called himself ‘Peter Meffert’.”  Adelaide Benecke was born in Manchester, 1831, as the first child of Charles and Adelaide Souchay; the Souchay family, like the Benecke family, was related to Mendelssohn’s wife, Cécile Jeanrenaud Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.  The likeliest visit Felix made to Manchester where Adelaide and her siblings would have recalled his presence and his stories was in June 1844 when she was ca. thirteen years old; R. Larry Todd, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 475.
[4] Todd, 436-437, 533.  The small piano piece is included with Mendelssohn’s Kinderstücke, Op. 72.  At Mendelssohn’s death on November 4, 1847, Op. 72 was one of two compositions in press, Ernst Wolff, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Berlin: Harmonie, 1906, 182.
[5] Jeffrey S. Sposato, The Price of Assimilation: Felix Mendelssohn and the Nineteenth-Century Anti-Semitic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 12, 14, 21, 22-23, 186n37.  This book explores the still complex and contentious issues of Felix’s own consciousness of his Jewish forebears and notes his acknowledgment of and interest in the political questions of his era, especially those relating to Jews.  Regarding Felix and the inner conflict of assimilation, one pathway to assimilation cited was through the creation of musical work: “He would substitute the veneration of Bach for that of his own ancestry.”  Paul Jourdan, Mendelssohn in England, 1829-37, D.Phil. Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1998, 33.  This was seen as part of the “process of breaking away,” Jourdan, 34.
[6] Clive Brown, A Portrait of Mendelssohn (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 108.
[7] Information on Töpfer’s career as a traveling guitar virtuoso comes from two online sites: <www.guitaronline.it/molitor_folder/zuthdiss/toepfer.html> and <www.tabulatura.com/SWEGUIT.htm> as well as from Töpfer’s entry in the online edition of the fifty-five volume compilation, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (1875-1912) (München:Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, nd), 38: 446-448, at <http://mdz1.bib-bvb.de/~ndb/>, which makes no mention of his novel Muck-Kobold und Peter Meffert, but cites his earlier work, Zeichnungen aus meinem Wanderleben (Hannover: 1823).  A simple alphabetical name/date/occupation listing of all ADB biographical entries is at  <http://aronsson.se/adb.html>.  Muck-Kobold und Peter Meffert islisted among Töpfer’ writings inPierer's Universal-Lexikon (Altenburg, 1857-1865), XVII, 686, at www.zeno.org/Pierer-1857/A/T%C3%B6pfer+%5B2%5D.
[8] A literary critique can be found in the extensive postscript in Karl Töpfer, Muck-Kobold und Peter Meffert, Kassel: Bohné, 1827. Nachdruck der Erstausgabe mit einem Nachwort von Hartmut Vollmer (Stuttgart: Belser Verlag, 1988).  The Postscript is separately paged 12-27.  The reprint uses the novel’s original Fraktur typeface.
[9] Todd, 33-34, 70-71, 171-172, 182-183.
[10]  Todd, 37, 79, 579n73.  With thanks to Larry Todd for pointing out Felix’s presence with his parents at the 1821 Weber premiere and the absence of Hoffmann’s name in Felix’s correspondence.
[11] Eric Werner, Mendelssohn: A New Image of the Composer and His Age, Translated by Dika Newlin, (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), 80-81;  Peter Ward Jones, comp., Mendelssohn. An Exhibition To Celebrate The Life of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847), exh. cat. (Oxford: Bodleian Library, June-August 1997),25.  In annotating Felix’s letter of August 3 from Scotland, his nephew Sebastian Hensel says that Felix’s sisters sent the volume to Felix in England, Sebastian Hensel, The Mendelssohn Family (1729-1847) From Letters and Journals, trans. Carl Klingemann and an American collaborator, 2 vol. in 1, facsimile reprint of 1881 ed. (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2005), I, 202n1.  This may be a mistaken attribution by Hensel.  In her diary entry for February 3, 1829, on Felix’s twentieth birthday, Fanny writes: “Er empfing seine Geschenke, von uns die Flegeljahre [von Jean Paul] in gesticktem Einbande, mit Hensels Zeichnung darin….”, Hans-Günter Klein and Rudolf Elvers, eds., Fanny Hensel: Tagebücher (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2002), 7.  Felix’s brother-in-law-to-be, Wilhelm Hensel, gave Felix the birthday copy just before the performance of the St. Matthew Passion, Todd, 195.  It appears that the gift was sent from Berlin to Felix in Hamburg and it arrived just prior to his departure for England, Todd, 202.
[12] Peter Ward Jones, “The Library of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy,” in Festschrift Rudolf Elvers zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. Ernst Herttrich and Hans Schneider (Tutzing: Schneider, 1985), 289-328.  Felix read Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels before his April, 1829 visit to London, Jourdan, Mendelssohn in England, 1829-37, 44.  Felix later met Scott during his walking tour after leaving London, Todd, 214.
[13] See Wilhelm Wackernagel, “Die Deutschen Appellativnamen III,” Germania: Vierteljahrssschrift für deutsche Alterthunskunde, Fünfter Jg., (1860): 290-356, where on page 336: “Peter haben wir appellativ als dummer Peter, als Dudelpeter, der Alles zoegernd langsam macht, als Hinkepeter, als Sporenpeter d.i. einen querköpfigen grillenhaften Menschen, als Umstandpeter, und dazu noch die Bezeichnung eines mühsam grübelnden Arbeitern, das Zeitwort petern; in Berlin ist Peter Meffert”;  Johann Lauremberg, SCHERZGEDICHTE. Übersicht über die Einnahmen und Ausgaben des Litterarischen Vereins im 13tn Verwaltungsjahr vom 1 Januar bis 31 December 1860 (Stuttgart: Litterarischer Verein, 1861);  Karl Albrecht, Die Leipziger Mundart, Grammatik und Wörterbuch der Leipziger Volkssprache (Leipzig: Arnoldische Buchhandlung, 1881).  On ‘Peter Meffert,’ Albrecht, 181, comments,“Er scheint mit dem Mr. Cheeks in englischen verwandt zu sein”;  Georg Büchmann und Walter Robert-tarnow [also spelled Robert-Tarnow’ and ‘Robert-Tornow’], Geflügelte Worte: Der Citatenschatz des deutschen Volkes (Berlin: Haude & Spener, 1898);  Josef Reinius, On Transferred Appellations of Human Beings, Chiefly in English and German: Studies in Historical Sematology [Ph.D. Diss.] (Göteburg: Zachrissons Boktryckeri A.B., 1903);  Oskar Weise, “Einiges über die Personennamen in der Mundart,” Zeitschrift für hochdeutsche Mundarten, V, no. 1-2, (1904): 353-356;  J. Leopold, “Eigennamen als Gattungsnamen in Redensarten und Sprichwörtern,” Taalstudie. Tweemaandelijksch Tijdschrift voor de Studie der Nieuwe Talen, Vol.3-4, 1882-1883, 218-237, overview of Peter and Peter Meffert, 225-226.  As evidence of how widespread the names Meffert and Peter Meffert became, they had two entries in a multivolume home reference work, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander, Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon. Ein Hausschatz für die deutsche Volk, 5 vol. (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1880) V, 1597.
[14] Reinius, 25; Thierry Depaulis, “Les Cartes de Pieter Mefferdt,” International Playing Card Society,  XVII/1: 1-5;  Lex Rijnen, “Peter Meffert and the Bibliothèque Nationale,” International Playing Card Society, XVIII/2: 48;  The International Playing-Card Society, “Pattern Sheet 49” provides dates for Pieter Meffert [sic] as “c. 1640-1663” at <http://i-p-c-s.org/pattern/ps-49.html>.  In a book about Swedish poet Lars Johanson or Johansson (Lucidor) [1638-1672], Stina Hansson, ed., Samlade Dikter (Stockholm: Svenska Vitterhetssamfundet, 1997), 371, line 39, cites “Meffertz Book” as an attribute of one’s pleasure while note 39 explains “Pieter Mefferdt var en berömd kortspelsfabrikant i Amsterdam.”  [Pieter Mefferdt was a well-known playing card manufacturer in Amsterdam.  Author’s translation].  A character described as “Peter Meffert Kartenmacher zum Jachandelberge/ im Spiele die Schwalbe” was listed in the 1682 program for In einer Parodie eines neuen Peter Sqvenzes von lautern Absurdis Comicis, the third of Christian Weise’s [1642-1708] festival plays in Zittau, at <http://diglib.hab.de/content.php?dir=drucke/lo-7879&xml=feast.xml&imgtyp=>.  In Wilhelm Wackernagel, Deutsches Lesebuch. Part 3, Vol. 1, Proben der deutschen Prosa seit den Jahre MD [1500] bis MDCCXL [1740] (Basel: Druck und Verlag der Schweighauserischen Buchhandlung, 1847), 838-839, appears the dialogue written by Christian Weise between “Peter Meffert” and another character in which Meffert affirms his origins and his occupation as a card maker.  Weise seemed to write about what was common knowledge among his audience.
[15] Reinius, 25.
[16] Reinius, 25-26; Albrecht, 181.
[17] Reinius, 25, 107, a typical Berlin name.
[18]Weise, 355;  Reinius, 107.
[19] Sposato, 191n1, cites performances in 1729, 1736 and ca. 1742.  For preparations and rehearsals, see Sposato, 2-57.  Todd, 193-198, also discusses the preparations and mentions that the significance of the so-called Bach revival as brought about by Felix is still controversial.  About the preparation of the performance and its immediate and longer cultural significance, see Celia Applegate, Bach in Berlin: Nation and Culture in Mendelssohn’s Revival of the St. Matthew Passion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).
[20] Felix was speaking “in an ironic, self-deprecating sense, rather than attempting to proudly assert his Jewish identity,” Sposato, 38.  Todd’s translation is essentially the same although he uses “young Jew” instead of “Jew-boy,” Todd, 94.  See the English edition of Devrient’s memoirs: Eduard Devrient, My Recollections of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and His Letters to Me, trans. Natalia Macfarren (London: Richard Bentley, 1869), Reprint New York: Vienna House, 1972, 57: “And to think … that it should be an actor and a Jew that gives back to the people the greatest of Christian works.”  The English translator used the most neutral characterization.  Felix’s comment is still not without controversy.
[21]  Felix Moscheles, Letters of Felix Mendelssohn to Ignaz and Charlotte Moscheles, translated from the originals in his possession, and edited by Felix Moscheles, (Boston: Ticknor & Co). 1888, 5-7, 8-10.
[22] Eduard Magnus (1799-1872), a friend, painted several versions of Felix’s portrait, with arms crossed and without.  The facial shadow is unmistakable; the image appears most recently on the dust jacket of Todd, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music.  After 1845, subsequent engravings made Magnus’s image very popular.  The noticeable facial shadow would be consistent with Felix’s abundant sideburns, which he retained to the end of his life.  His sideburns are a noted feature in his portraits as a mature man, and along with his wavy hair, his sideburns were a favorite part of later caricatures.
[23]Felix bore a resemblance to his paternal Mendelssohn side as well as to the maternal Salomon/Itzig side.  Uncle Jacob (born Jacob Ludwig Salomon, added Bartholdy upon conversion), was Felix’s mother’s brother.  Images of uncle Jacob in life and death show the strong maternal facial resemblance to Felix which reinforced the same strong paternal facial features.  See images of J.L.S. Bartholdy by the following artists:
* Friedrich Overbeck: profile drawing head, ca. 1817, graphite on paper, dimensions unknown, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.  See Susanne Netzer, “Fortuna et Veritas. Jacob Ludwig Salomon Bartholdy (1779-1825), Mendelssohn Studien, 15 (2007), 147-198; image, 151.
* Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld: drawing, half figure, ca. 1820, dimensions unknown, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv (MA BA 1), Netzer, 187.
* Carl Begas: oil portrait, half figure, 72x59cm, 1824, Kreismuseum Heinsberg, Netzer, 189.  Brief commentary in Bodleian Library, Oxford, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Bodleian Picture Books, Special Series No. 3, Oxford, 1972, 15n15.
* Wilhelm Hensel: J.L.S. Bartholdy on his deathbed, pencil drawing, dimensions unknown, 1825.  See image in Wilfred Blunt, On Wings of Song: A Biography of Felix Mendelssohn, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974, 24;  Die Familie Mendelssohn. “Mit den Augen der Liebe” gezeichnet von Wilhelm Hensel, ex. cat. Jüdisches Museum Rendsburg, 18. März bis 20. Mai 2007, Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseum Schloss Gottorf, 2007, 41 - on page 32 is Hensel’s deathbed drawing of Felix.  See alsoFelix Gilbert, ed., Bankiers, Künstler und Gelehrte: unveröffentlichte Briefe der Familie Mendelssohn aus dem 19. Jahrhundert, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1975, opp. 64.  The resemblance in the deathbed drawings of uncle Jacob and nephew Felix are astonishing.
* Emil Wolff: undated photographs of a bust - frontal and profile, dimensions and date unknown, Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Netzer, 191.  The profile photo shows Jacob with a very large and very pronounced hook nose.
[24] Images of Childe’s full-length watercolor portrait can be seen in George Marek, Gentle Genius; The Story of Felix Mendelssohn (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1972), dust cover image;  Philip Radcliffe, Mendelssohn, 3d ed., rev. Peter Ward Jones (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), foll. 80;  Wilfred Blunt, On Wings of Song: A Biography of Felix Mendelssohn (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974), 103;  Eckart Kleßmann, Die Mendelssohns. Bilder aus einer deutschen Familie (Frankfurt a.M., Insel Verlag, 1993), 171;  Das verborgene Band: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy und seine Schwester Fanny Hensel. Ausstellung der Musikabteilung der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz zum 150. Todestag der beiden Geschwister, 15. Mai bis 12. July 1997, [Ausstellung und Katalog, Hans-Günter Klein] (Wiesbaden: L. Reichert, 1997), 230;  Werner, frontispiece;  Peter Mercer-Taylor, The Life of Mendelssohn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 81, incorrectly described as an oil painting.  See also <www.en.wikipedia.org>, a handy source for reading about and viewing images of the History of Western Fashion, decade by decade.
[25] Eduard Devrient, My Recollections of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and His Letters to Me. Trans. Natalia Macfarren (London: Richard Bentley, 1869).  Reprint New York: Vienna House, 1972, 57.
[26] Hensel, I, 186;  Todd, 201-210, describes the young German composer about London town as cutting a dashing figure who quite obviously enjoyed the social scene.
[27]See Bürkner’s wood engraving of Felix in Ludwig Bechstein, Zweihundert Bildnisse und Lebensabrisse berühmter deutscher Männer. Die Porträts gez. u. geschn. von Hugo Bürkner. Leipzig; Wigand; 1870, 4. Aufl., pl. 184.  Bürkner’s image is still reproduced, usually without an artist attribution.  See Janet I. Wasserman, "Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847); Portrait Iconography," Music in Art [City University of New York, Research Center for Music Iconography], XXXIII/1-2 (2008), 317-371.

[28] The Karl Begas image of Felix at age twelve shows him with a wide and fairly straight nose that has no bulbous tip, Todd, pl. 4, foll. 222.  It is a given that facial features will change after puberty.  The image in the popular mind about Felix’s grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, was of the short, hunchbacked and hook-nosed ghetto Jew, which was how Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-1882) painted Moses Mendelssohn, without any derisive exaggeration of his features, in Lavater and Lessing Visit Moses Mendelssohn (oil on canvas, 1856), Todd, pl. 1, foll. 222.  Oppenheim was among the first German Jews to be classically trained in art and who also concentrated on Jewish themes and home life.  See Ezra Mendelsohn, Painting A People: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art, (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2002), fig. 104 on 210.  Mendelsohn discusses the impact that Oppenheim had on Gottlieb and other Jewish artists.  See also Wasserman, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847); Portrait Iconography, entry for Oppenheim.
[29] Eduard Fuchs, Die Juden in der Karikatur: ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte, München: A. Langen, 1921, IX, 35-51 passim.  Childe’s 1829 portrait is in contradistinction to that still very live tradition in England of anti-Jewish caricature.  Perhaps accounts of Felix’s growing reputation in music, of his role as scion of a wealthy and cultured German banking family (by 1829 most of the family had converted to Christianity) and of his introduction to London society (including royalty) allowed for a more respectful Anglicized rendering of the visitor.  It is remarkable that Felix’s features in Childe’s portrait are so understated as to challenge the notion of any real resemblance to the twenty-year-old composer.  Childe’s Felix is very much in the vein of the artist’s Portrait of an Elegant Gentleman (ca. 1825), which seems to have been the stylistic template Childe used to depict young Englishmen of this class.  Childe’s idealized portrait of young Felix bore no resemblance to the Peter Meffert image.
[30]In the rotunda of the Kosciuszko Foundation house in New York City is a larger-than-lifesize bronze statue of a seated Chopin by the noted Polish sculptor Ludwika Nitschowa (1889-1989).  By standing to one side and looking at the head in full profile, the viewer sees Chopin’s large hook nose which dominates his face.  This Chopin statue (1976-1980) is the last one of five Chopin statues produced in the sculptor’s lifetime.
[31] The chin cleft is most apparent in two different portraits of Felix by Wilhelm von Schadow (1788-1862) who was both a friend and art teacher of Felix’s.  They first met in Rome in 1830, later traveled and sketched together and remained lifelong friends.  See Clive Brown, A Portrait of Mendelssohn, “Appearance and Manner,” 3-9.  According to Felix’s friend Eduard Devrient, “His features, of the Oriental type,” Devrient, 65, seemed to be a 19th century coded phrase for Semitic, i.e., Jewish.  Queen Victoria noted in her diary in June 1842 after meeting the composer, “He is short, dark, and Jewish looking,” Brown, 6;  Nichols, “Manners, Appearance, Character,” 185-220.  Max F. Schneider, Felix Mendelssohn im Bildnis,( Basel: Privatdruck von H. v .M. B., 1953), includes brief descriptions from several memoirists of Felix’s appearance at different stages of his life.  Sir George Grove (1820-1900), a most sympathetic and admiring music critic and biographer of Felix, said of the composer’s personal appearance, “His look was dark and very Jewish,” Hensel, II, 340.
[32] The Punch cartoon’s caricatured chorus leader has Felix’s large nose.  The Antigone/Mendelssohn images are in Musica, August 1914, 150/INHA; Nichols, Mendelssohn Remembered, foll. page 138, plate 13; the entire page from Punch entitled “Antigone Analysed” is in reduced format in Paul de Stoecklin, Mendelssohn, Paris: H. Laurens/Librairie Renouard, 1927,89;  Michael Hurd, Mendelssohn. London: Faber and Faber, 1970, 74;  Rémi Jacobs, Mendelssohn, Paris: Solfèges/Seuil, 1977, 173b.  See Todd, xxv, where the Beardsley caricature is thus described: “the dandified composer appears with feminized curled hair and delicate shoes, and brandishes a plumed pen.”  Beardsley’s caricature added currency to George Bernard Shaw’s (1856-1950) many dismissals of Mendelssohn, which can be summed up in Shaw’s quote of Felix’s “kid glove gentility, his conventional sentimentality, and his despicable oratorio mongering,” in Shaw’s 1889 review of the Quartet in E Flat Major, in Louis Crompton, ed., The Great Composers: Reviews and Bombardments by Bernard Shaw (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 122.  Shaw was an unredeemed and highly public atheist who saved his biggest salvoes for religion.  Beardsley’s intense attraction to Wagner’s operas and writings and Wagner’s place in Beardsley’s oeuvre in the final decade of his life have recently been explored in Emma Sutton, Aubrey Beardsley and British Wagnerism in the 1890s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).  Like Beardsley, Shaw was an ardent Wagnerite and, having chosen the same musical-esthetic side, neither Shaw nor Beardsley liked Mendelssohn, the man or his music.  An excellent historical survey of the caricature genre can be found in Ann Gould, ed. and William Feaver, introd. & commentary, Masters of Caricature from Hogarth and Gillray to Scarfe and Levine (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981).  Felix does not appear in this volume although the Vanity Fair caricaturist known as Ape -- Italian for ‘bee’ -- whose real name was Carlo Pellegrini, drew a caricature of Oscar Wilde in 1884 that seems to be a direct precursor to Beardsley.  Pellegrini’s gentler caricature of Wilde (Gould, 27) is less stinging than Beardsley’s Wildean caricature of Mendelssohn.  The sources for the caricatures by Minnion, Major, Šmíd and Jonker are inthe artist inventory compiled by Janet I. Wasserman,see note 27.
[33] Images by the artists cited can be found as follows:
A) Schmeller: Françoise Tillard, Fanny Mendelssohn, trans. Camille Naish (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1996), foll. 176, plate 13;  Kleßmann, 181;  Hans Joachim Marx, ed., Hamburger Mendelssohn-Vorträge. Internationale Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy-Gesellschaft, Hamburg (Hamburg: Christians, 2003), frontispiece, dated May 1830;  Roger Nichols, Mendelssohn Remembered, foll. 138, plate 7.
B) Steinbrück: The caption “as he would have looked on his first visit to London” is in Mozelle Moshansky, Mendelssohn. His Life and Times (New York: Midas/Hippocrene Books, 1982), 53, although the image creator is not cited;  Michael Hurd, Mendelssohn, (London: Faber and Faber, 1970), 64, cites the creator as “Steinbrüch”;  Wolff, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, 75, does not cite the creator but says the original was then owned by Paul Joachim, Berlin.
C) Vernet’s portrait is in: Heinrich Eduard Jacob, Felix Mendelssohn and His Times, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963), opp. 234;  cited in Todd, 237, 598n67 (no image);  Percy Colson, Victorian Portraits, (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1968), 224.  Schadow’s portrait (see also note 31) is in Brown, following 282, figure 17;  Todd, frontispiece;  Elvers, Letters, plate 11;  Kleßmann, 94;  Das verborgene Band, 230.
While Hildebrandt’s portrait was made in 1834/35, Felix and Hildebrandt traveled together in Italy in 1830 and 1831 and were lifelong friends.  Hildebrandt’s knowledge of Felix’s features can be relied upon; seeHans-Günter Klein, “Theodor Hildebrandt und Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Italien. Aus den Tagebuchaufzeichnungen des Malers 1830/31,” Mendelssohn-Studien, 13 (2003), 81-100.  Hildebrandt’s portrait is in Brown, following 282, figure 18; Das verborgene Band, 169 pl. 219E, while on 230 the image is dated to 1835 but not by the artist;  Hans-Günter Klein, Die Mendelssohns im Bildnis. Porträts aus der ersten bis vierten Generation, (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2004), gives dimensions as 61x54 cm in illustration credits;  Thomas Lackmann, Das Glück der Mendelssohns. Geschichte einer deutschen Familie, (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 2005), plate 26 following page 448;  Peter Mercer-Taylor, The Life of Mendelssohn, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 128;  Philip Radcliffe, Mendelssohn, 3d ed., rev. Peter Ward Jones, (Oxford University Press, 2000), foll. 80.
[34]  Hensel, I, 307;  Werner, 239;  Hans-Günter Klein and Rudolf Elvers, eds., Fanny Hensel: Tagebücher (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2002), 46, 295n46,8, in which Fanny mentions “Lovie” in early 1840.  Fanny’s reference may have been an ongoing inside joke about Felix among family members.  Felix’s playfulness with names appears earlier in a letter (1826 or 1827) which he signs as “Felix Ludwig Jocko Toldy,” Victoria Ressmeyer Sirota, The Life and Works of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, D.M.A. Diss., Boston University, 1981, 25.
[35] Todd, passim;  Peter Ward Jones, ed. and trans., The Mendelssohns on Honeymoon. The 1837 Diary of Felix and Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy Together with Letters to their Families (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997);  Margaret Crum, "Mendelssohn's Drawing and the Doubled Life of Memory," in Rudolf Elvers, ed., Festschrift Albi Rosenthal (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1984), 87-103;  Rudolf Elvers, “Bilder-Briefe von und an Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy,” in Andreas Eichhorn, ed., Festschrift Hans-Peter Schmitz zum 75. Geburtstag, (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1992), 81-84.
[36] Kleßmann, 127; Rémi Jacobs, Mendelssohn, (Paris: Solfèges/Seuil, 1977), 130.
[37] Todd, 30-31.  Sebastian Hensel says the family left in 1811, Hensel, I, 73, while many other secondary sources say 1812.  Hensel is supported in his date by the recent examination of documents and letters which reveal the increasingly dangerous circumstances for the brothers Abraham and Joseph Mendelssohn in Hamburg during the French occupation that followed the 1806 invasion by Napoleon’s army.  Sebastian Panwitz, “Joseph und Abraham Mendelssohn unter Arrest. Eine Akte aus den Jahren 1811/12,” Mendelssohn Studien, 14 (2005), 77-100.
[38]Todd, 28, 29; Abraham and Lea spent each summer from 1805 to 1810 in their summer house known as Martens Mill, named after the miller-owner Daniel Martens, Hensel, I, 73; Natalie Nowack, “ ‘Martens Mühle soll leben’,” Mendelssohn-Studien 10 (1997), 247-249.  Fanny, born November 1805, and Felix, born February 1809, obviously spent their summers from 1806 to 1810 in Altona although Fanny was obviously more likely than Felix to retain some memory of their annual months-long summer stays.  Abraham’s mother Fromet Mendelssohn (1737-1812) spent her last years in Altona.
[39] In Todd, 38-56, there is detailed history of Felix’s musical theory and composition instruction from Zelter.  Buxtehude is not listed in these pages or in the biography’s index.  See also R. Larry Todd, Mendelssohn’s Musical Education: A Study and Edition of his Exercises in Composition. Oxford Bodleian MS Margaret Deneke Mendelssohn c.43, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) which shows J. S. Bach as the core of Zelter’s methodology.  Todd does not credit any knowledge of Buxtehude to Felix [personal communication to the author] yet Buxtehude is an earlier exponent of Lutheran church music in the North German tradition as is Bach.  Berlin was not too far outside the North German orbit for Buxtehude to have penetrated although Bach was certainly highly revered by the Mendelssohn family, and partly through the family’s and Felix’s efforts, so was all of Berlin.  There is nothing in Sebastian Hensel or in family letters mentioning Buxtehude the composer.  Later in life, Felix may have heard of Buxtehude from his many organist colleagues in England and the Continent but there is as yet no evidence that as a twenty-year old he was knowledgeable of Buxtehude the man while more probably knowing through family history of Buxtehude the place.  See Wm. A. Little, “Felix Mendelssohn and his Place in the Organ World of his Time,” John Michael Cooper and Julie D. Prandi, eds., The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History, (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) 291-302.
[40] John Edward Toews, Becoming Historical: Cultural Reformation and Public Memory in Early Nineteenth-Century Berlin, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 244.  See chapter 4, “The Generation of Ethical Community from the Spirit of Music: Mendelssohn’s Musical Constructions of Historical Identity,” 207-278.  Although the role of paterfamilias in Berlin devolved upon Felix’s younger brother Paul after Abraham’s sudden death in 1835, Felix also made a self-identification with his father in maintaining Abraham’s discouragement of any public or professional musical career, whether performing or publication of her compositions, for his sister Fanny.
[41] A brief and compelling look at this period is Amos Elon, The Pity of It All. A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch 1743-1933, (New York: Picador, 2002).  Elon’s introduction begins with fourteen-year-old Moses Mendelssohn entering Berlin through the only gate Jews and cattle were permitted to pass.  The first third of the book covers the period to the revolution of 1848 – a year after Felix’s death.  Elon’s description of the position of Jews – converted and unconverted – shows how the Mendelssohn family’s milieu was affected by the everpresent political, social, cultural and religious turmoil in Germany.
[42] Abraham’s letters to his daughter Fanny in this vein began in 1820 when she was only fourteen or fifteen and he wrote to her on this subject as late as her 23d birthday in 1828, a year before Felix’s first visit to England and Fanny’s engagement, see Hensel, I, 81-82, 83-84;  Tillard, 66-68ff; Nancy B. Reich, “The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel,” in R. Larry Todd, ed., Mendelssohn and His World, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 86-99.
[43] Todd, 201-222.
[44] Hensel, I, 123, 246-248;  Todd, 218, 219, 220, 221-222;  Peter Ward Jones, comp., Mendelssohn. An Exhibition To Celebrate The Life of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847), exh.cat. (Oxford: Bodleian Library, June-August 1997), 28;  Monika Hennemann, “Felix Mendelssohn’s Dramatic Compositions: From Liederspiel to Lorelei,” in The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn, ed. Peter Mercer-Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 210-211, 215, 269.  Karl Klingemann, ed. with introd., Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdys Briefwechsel mit Legationsrat Karl Klingemann in London (Essen: G. D. Baedeker Verlagshandlung, 1909), 67-74, includes correspondence and a description about the Liederspiel.  The English version of the Liederspiel, called Son and Stranger, was adapted by Klingemann and was not published until after Felix’s death.  NOTE: The editor Karl Klingemann is the son of Felix’s London friend Karl Klingemann whose correspondence is published.  See printed scores listed in Martin Staehelin, “Musikalien aus dem Besitz von Mendelssohns Freund Karl Klingemann,” in Ernst Herttrich and Hans Schneider, eds., Festschrift Rudolf Elvers zum 60. Geburtstag (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1985), 487;Marion Wilson Kimber, “ ‘For art has the same place in your heart as mine’: Family Friendship and Community in the Life of Felix Mendelssohn,” in ed. Douglass Seaton, The Mendelssohn Companion, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), see section of the article captioned Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde, 167-173.  NOTE: Different dates for the silver wedding anniversary found in secondary sources include December 22, 26 and 28.  December 26 is cited in Hensel I, 247, Todd, 18, and Panwitz, 92.
[45] Lackmann, 216.
[46] Todd, 221, where he also notes musical self-references by Felix which “further reinforced the autobiographical elements” of the Liederspiel.  Kauz as peddler is reminiscent of the roving Jewish peddler whose occupation was often the only one permitted to him under anti-Jewish strictures nearly everywhere. The caricatures in Fuchs (see note 29) frequently satirized the Jewish peddler as an object of derisive fun.
[47] Klingemann, Briefwechsel, 276.

 

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