Jenny Lind

Jenny Lind

In general Mendelssohn's personal life seems to have been fairly conventional compared to his contemporaries Wagner, Berlioz, and Schumann – except for his relationship with Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, whom he met in October 1844. An affidavit from Lind's husband, Otto Goldschmidt, which is currently held in the archive of the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation at the Royal Academy of Music in London, reportedly describes Mendelssohn's 1847 written request for Lind, who was then not married, to elope with him to America. The affidavit, though unsealed, is currently unreleased by the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation, despite requests to make it public.[72][n 5]

Mendelssohn met and worked with Lind many times, and started an opera, Lorelei, for her, based on the legend of the Lorelei Rhine maidens; the opera was unfinished at his death. He is said to have included a high F-sharp in his oratorio Elijah ("Hear Ye Israel") with Lind's voice in mind,[74] although she did not sing this part until after his death, at a concert in December 1848.[75] In 1847 Mendelssohn attended a London performance of Meyerbeer's Robert le diable – an opera which musically he despised – in order to hear Lind's British debut, in the role of Alice. The music critic Henry Chorley, who was with him, wrote "I see as I write the smile with which Mendelssohn, whose enjoyment of Mdlle. Lind's talent was unlimited, turned round and looked at me, as if a load of anxiety had been taken off his mind. His attachment to Mlle. Lind's genius as a singer was unbounded, as was his desire for her success".[76]

Upon Mendelssohn's death Lind wrote, "[He was] the only person who brought fulfillment to my spirit, and almost as soon as I found him I lost him again". In 1869 Lind erected a plaque in Mendelssohn's memory at his birthplace in Hamburg; in 1849 she established the Mendelssohn Scholarship Foundation, which makes an award to a British resident young composer every two years in Mendelssohn's memory.[72] The first winner of the scholarship was Arthur Sullivan, then aged 14, in 1856.