Felix Mendelssohn liked boats. Or, rather, he liked the places that boats could take him to. When, in August 1829, he made his famous journey over the waves to the isle of Staffa off the west coast of Scotland, he could scarcely contain his excitement. Jotting the opening theme of what would become his Fingal’s Cave overture on a postcard to sister Fanny, he wrote: ‘In order to make you understand how extraordinarily the Hebrides affected me, I send you the following, which came into my head there.’ Whether he enjoyed the journey there is another matter. Implying that the composer spent much of the time looking green and leaning over the side of the ship, his travelling companion Karl Klingemann reflected that Mendelssohn ‘is on better terms with the sea as a musician than as an individual with a stomach’.
Joseph Haydn, on the other hand, was evidently made of sterner stuff. Stoutly remaining on deck throughout the stormy finale of his crossing of the English Channel on New Year’s Day 1791, he found himself blown by gale-force winds and watching, in his own words, ‘the monstrous high waves rushing at us’. Yes, he admitted in a letter to his friend Maria Genzinger, he
