ABSTRACT
The essentials of the relationship between Goethe and Mendelssohn have been explored in Larry Todd's mighty argosy of scholarship, Mendelssohn. While Karl Mendelssohn's monograph has remained a keystone in Mendelssohn studies, any serious engagement with the image of Mendelssohn as presented in Goethe's correspondence with the composer Carl Friedrich Zelter is strikingly absent. In addition, Mendelssohn dedicated his Piano Quartet, to Prince Radziwill and published it in 1823, which marked his entrance as composer into the public domain. As accounts of the ensuing conversation show, Goethe and Zelter knew the transition from youthful prodigy to adult master to be a vexed one and that most prodigies did not fulfil their youthful potential. Mendelssohn's final encounter with Goethe took place in the annus mirabilis of 1830 and lasted from 21 May to 3 June 1830, on the threshold of the composer's Italian journey.
