Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy to Heinrich Baermann, 5 September 1832
To Heinrich Baermann
Source US-Wc, ML30.8j Box 1 Folder 10. No digitisation currently available.
Transcription Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, et al. Sämtliche Briefe. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2008, vol. III p. 49–51
Summary Mendelssohn speaks of his illness and bereavements and asks for news from Munich to cheer him up. He congratulates Baermann on his son Carl's appointment as Kammermusiker. ‘I am very pleased that Karl is now a true, real, but not secret chamber musician; he will certainly go far and the apple will not fall far from the tree’. He apologises for not being successful in getting an essay by Baermann's essay published in the French press, and reports that he has translated it into English and will send it to the Harmonicon in England. However, he is concerned that it may not be taken up as the clarinetist Thomas Lindsay Willman is still held in the highest regard there, and suggests that HB should instead have it published ‘here’ (Berlin). Mendelssohn offers to make an introduction and notes ‘here every student of the clarinet knows you, and I believe that much more success could be expected here’. He closes by sending greetings to mutual friends.
