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====Meeting Goethe and conducting Bach==== In 1821 Zelter introduced Mendelssohn to his friend and correspondent, the writer [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]] (then in his seventies), who was greatly impressed by the child, leading to perhaps the earliest confirmed comparison with [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]] in the following conversation between Goethe and Zelter: {{blockquote|"Musical prodigies ... are probably no longer so rare; but what this little man can do in extemporizing and playing at sight borders the miraculous, and I could not have believed it possible at so early an age." "And yet you heard Mozart in his seventh year at Frankfurt?" said Zelter. "Yes", answered Goethe, "... but what your pupil already accomplishes, bears the same relation to the Mozart of that time that the cultivated talk of a grown-up person bears to the prattle of a child."{{sfn|Todd|2003|p=89}}}} Mendelssohn was invited to meet Goethe on several later occasions,{{sfn|Mercer-Taylor|2000|pp=41β42, 93}} and set a number of Goethe's poems to music. His other compositions inspired by Goethe include the overture ''[[Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Mendelssohn)|Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage]]'' (Op. 27, 1828), and the cantata ''[[Die erste Walpurgisnacht]]'' (''The First Walpurgis Night'', Op. 60, 1832).{{sfn|Todd|2003|pp=188β190, 269β270}} In 1829, with the backing of Zelter and the assistance of the actor [[Eduard Devrient]], Mendelssohn arranged and conducted a performance in Berlin of Bach's ''[[St Matthew Passion]]''. Four years previously his grandmother, [[Bella Salomon]], had given him a copy of the manuscript of this (by then all-but-forgotten) masterpiece.{{sfn|Todd|2001|loc=Β§2}} The orchestra and choir for the performance were provided by the Berlin Singakademie. The success of this performance, one of the very few since Bach's death and the first ever outside of [[Leipzig]],{{refn|After Bach's death in 1750, the Passion had been performed a few times until about 1800 by Bach's successors as [[Thomaskantor]] in Leipzig.{{sfn|Spitta|1972|p=568 (vol. 2)}}|group=n}} was the central event in the revival of Bach's music in Germany and, eventually, throughout Europe.{{sfn|Mercer-Taylor|2000|pp=73β75}} It earned Mendelssohn widespread acclaim at the age of 20. It also led to one of the few explicit references which Mendelssohn made to his origins: "To think that it took an actor and a Jew's son to revive the greatest Christian music for the world!"{{sfn|Todd|2003|pp=193β198}}{{sfn|Devrient|1869|p=57}} Over the next few years Mendelssohn travelled widely. His first visit to England was in 1829; other places visited during the 1830s included Vienna, Florence, Milan, Rome and Naples, in all of which he met with local and visiting musicians and artists. These years proved to be the germination for some of his most famous works, including the ''[[The Hebrides (overture)|Hebrides Overture]]'' and the ''[[Symphony No. 3 (Mendelssohn)|Scottish]]'' and ''[[Symphony No. 4 (Mendelssohn)|Italian]]'' symphonies.{{sfn|Todd|2001|loc=Β§3}}
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