His seemingly instinctive and spontaneous command of counterpoint, already seen in his improvisation, is manifest in his organ music, in his psalms and oratorios, in his fugues as such, in the clear, symmetrical development of his orchestral and chamber works, in fact in all his compositions of whatever form. He was happily at home in this soul secret of the plastic tone-art. For the truth is, he was musically, spiritually, a true child of Sebastian Bach: who more fit than he to be the first exponent to our century of the long-shelved Matthew _Passion_ of that mighty master? Through Mendelssohn has Bach gained a foothold in the more modern world of music. His instrumentation is a model in its way, neither too much nor too little. Never dry and meagre, it is never bloated and excessive, weighed down to monotony by superfluous multitude of heavy instruments, which give each other scarcely room to vibrate freely, like so much in the "advanced" instrumentation of to-day. It is never extravagant, bent on sensational surprises and effects, if sometimes droll for cause. It is chaste, simple, clear, while it is vivid, graphic, and expressive. There is no false, exaggerated coloring, only just what suits the subject. Now it is airy, delicate, and fairylike; now bold, majestic, or sublime; now fraught with changing atmospheric quality, as in the "Rain" chorus in _Elijah_, in the _Hebrides_ overture, and the _Becalmed at Sea_ and _Prosperous Voyage_, now light-hearted and elastic, as in the "Italian" Symphony and the youthful overture to the _Return from Abroad_. If he does not touch the spiritual depths, nor strike with the lightning suddenness and fire of Beethoven, it is because he is himself, not Beethoven. But alike in his purely instrumental and his choral works, his instrumentation is always interesting, always clear and telling, and in keeping with the whole, always original, poetic, full of life and power. We might discourse upon his mastery of Form. Enough to say, that with him all is in "good form," yet not formal, at least to a fault. So much of his musicianship, his technical equipment, of what might be learned from masters. In him it all ministered to a creative genius of an original, rare order, as we shall see in a slight, cursory survey of his productions. [Illustration: MENDELSSOHN IN HIS TWELFTH YEAR.[A] Painted by Begas.] [Footnote A: At this age he had written two operas and almost completed a third,--six symphonies, a quartet for piano and strings, a Cantata, six fugues for the piano, a psalm for four or five voices with a double fugue, and many minor pieces.--K. K.]