Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Felix, composer (1809-1847). Autograph letter signed.

€ 9,500.00

A deeply affectionate letter to Mrs. Verkenius, the widow of the District Court Councillor Erich Verkenius (1776-1841), founder and patron of the Lower Rhenish Music Festival, and to their daughter Sibylla as well as to their son-in-law, the banker Ignatz Seydlitz (1803-70), at whose house Mendelssohn had spent the night during the first choral festival of the German-Flemish Sängerbund, which had taken place in Cologne on June 14th and 15th, directed by himself and Franz Weber: "Dear Mr. Seydlitz and dear Mrs. Verkenius - for in fact I would like to address this letter to all three of you - I am happily returned and have found all my family safe and sound, thank God. And now I feel as though I needed quickly to return to Malzbüchel no. 4 [the Seydlitzes' address] and say something about thanks and never forgetting - which would probably sound quite as ungraceful as these lines read, but would be meant no less earnestly and sincerely. Of course you are already aware of everything I am trying to say; you know that a reception such as the one I just enjoyed at your house, and everything that was mentioned again of the present and the past, and, in brief, that lasting, unchangeable friendship is and always will be the finest, dearest and best thing in the world, and that you thus have beatified for me these just-spent days into true feasts. This is what I wished to thank you for! There have been but few hours since I parted with you that I did not do so in spirit […] (transl.)".