ABSTRACT
In September 1844, Felix Mendelssohn again asked Friedrich Wilhelm IV to release him from his court position in Berlin, and this time the king assented. Yet rather than return to Leipzig, Mendelssohn placed Gade in charge of the Gewandhaus concerts, and spent much of the winter with his family in Frankfurt. By September 1845, Mendelssohn was back in Leipzig, where he resumed the direction of the Gewandhaus concerts. Mendelssohn did not visit England in 1845, but London did not forget its favourite living composer. When Mendelssohn saw the caricatures, he took the criticism in his stride, and urged his sister Fanny to try to obtain a copy of the magazine. Once again, the London season offered an abundance of Mendelssohn performances: the Philharmonic played his Melusine and Midsummer Night's Dream overtures, his Symphony No. 1 and his Violin Concerto.
