In 1841 Mendelssohn became Kapellmeister of the Prussian court.  He now wrote the “Athalie” music, the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” and a large number of lesser pieces, including the “Songs without Words,” and piano sonatas, as well as much church music.  The greatest work of this period was the “Hymn of Praise,” a symphonic cantata for the Leipsic anniversary of the invention of printing, regarded by many as his finest composition.

Mendelssohn always loved England, and made frequent visits across the Channel; for he felt that among the English he was fully appreciated, both as man and composer.

His oratorio of “Elijah” was composed for the English public, and produced at the great Birmingham festival in 1846, under his own direction, with magnificent success.  It was given a second time in April, 1847, with his final refinements and revisions; and the event was regarded in England as one of the greatest since the days of Handel, to whom, as well as to Haydn and Beethoven, Mendelssohn showed himself a worthy rival in the field of oratorio composition.  Of this visit to England Lampadius, his friend and biographer, writes:  “Her Majesty, who as well as her husband was a great friend of art, and herself a distinguished musician, received the distinguished German in her own sitting-room, Prince Albert being the only one present besides herself.  As he entered she asked his pardon for the somewhat disorderly state of the room, and began to rearrange the articles with her own hands, Mendelssohn himself gallantly offering his assistance.  Some parrots whose cages hung in the room she herself carried into the next room, in which Mendelssohn helped her also.  She then requested her guest to play something, and afterward sang some songs of his which she had sung at a court concert soon after the attack on her person.  She was not wholly pleased, however, with her own performance, and said pleasantly to Mendelssohn:  ’I can do better—­ask Lablache if I cannot; but I am afraid of you!’”

This anecdote was related by Mendelssohn himself to show the graciousness of the English queen.  It was at this time that Prince Albert sent to Mendelssohn the book of the oratorio “Elijah” with which he used to follow the performance, with the following autographic inscription: 

“To the noble artist, who, surrounded by the Baal worship of corrupted art, has been able by his genius and science to preserve faithfully like another Elijah the worship of true art, and once more to accustom our ear, lost in the whirl of an empty play of sounds, to the pure notes of expressive composition and legitimate harmony—­to the great master, who makes us conscious of the unity of his conception through the whole maze of his creation, from the soft whispering to the mighty raging of the elements:  Written in token of grateful remembrance by Albert.  “Buckingham Palace, April 24, 1847.”