Queen Victoria and Prince Albert listen as Mendelssohn performs on the piano
Source:Music Teacher's Blog: Mendelssohn: Part 2 – An Extraordinary Friendship with Queen Victoria
1st of May, 1847
Queen Victoria wrote on the 1st of May 1847 of what would be Mendelssohn’s last visit to Buckingham Palace: “We had the great treat of hearing Mendelssohn play, & he stayed an hour with us, playing some new compositions, with that indescribably beautiful touch of his. I also sang 3 of his songs, which seemed to please him. He is so amiable & clever. For some time he has been engaged in composing an Opera ['Lorelei'] & an Oratorio ['Christus'], but has lost courage about them. The subject for his Opera is a Rhine Legend, & that for the Oratorio, a very beautiful one, depicting Earth, Hell & Heaven, & he played one of the Choruses out of this to us, which was very fine.”Afterwards, the Queen said to Mendelssohn: “You have given me so much pleasure; now what can I do to give you pleasure?” He replied that he would love to see the royal children playing in their nursery. As a father himself, he was very pleased to accompany the Queen, as she later reported, “all the while comparing notes with him on the homely subjects that had a special attraction for them both.”
Mendelssohn saw Albert for the last time on the 5th of May (1847) at a ‘Concert of Ancient Music’ organised by the Prince at the Hanover Square Rooms. The composer performed an organ prelude and fugue by Bach on an instrument the ‘Times’ described as “one of the worst in the metropolis.”
In response to the Prince’s gift of his inscribed ‘Elijah,’ programme notes, Mendelssohn made a special piano duet arrangement of his ‘Lieder ohne Worte’ in B flat major, Op. 85 No. 6, especially for Victoria and Albert to play, sent with a note of appreciation on the 8th of May 1847, the day of his departure from London.