Elijah

Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah, Op. 70

Mendelssohn as an oratorio composer

Felix Mendelssohn's contributions to sacred vocal and choral music were prefigured by those of his great hero J. S. Bach. Having spearheaded the revival of Bach's music in Germany while he was still in his twenties, Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was sought after to compose music for the new cathedral being built in Berlin in the early 1840s.

Mendelssohn began to conceptualize his setting of Elijah in 1837, on the heels of completing his well-received oratorio St. Paul (Paulus. Lacking a specific occasion for its performance, he set it aside. His return to its composition in 1845 was prompted by an invitation to Birmingham in 1845. Mendelssohn then focused entirely on it, presenting a version adequate for performance in the Town Hall on August 26, 1846, but not sending to press a final version (as Op. 70) until the following year. The revised version was performed in London in April 1847. The composer was more satisfied with the new version, but in contrast to the unrestrained enthusiasm it elicited in Birmingham, the applause was now more modest.

The goal of working with a subject such as Elijah is considered to have appealed to Mendelssohn's wish to score a success with dramatic music. Despite having composed incidental music for two Sophoclean tragedies and Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream," he was seeking a reciprocal relationship between music and text that he felt he had not yet achieved. In Paulus the subject of religious conversion is fundamental. The composer's father Moses had campaigned in Berlin for the modernization of Jewish liturgy, and religious expression was never far from Mendelssohn's mind in these years. Mendelssohn's articulate expression in words sought a perfect union with music that often proved to be elusive. Before completing Elijah, he had studies some of Handel's oratorios carefully.

Sketch by Mendelssohn for a duet version of Elijah dated 1 January 1847 (Library of Congress).

Two areas of potential tension intersect in Elijah. One issues from Mendelssohn's conversion from Judaism to Protestant Christianity. All accounts hold that Mendelssohn was sincere in his beliefs, and he was well practiced in them by the time he composed Elijah. By relying on the Old Testament, Mendelssohn consistently avoided passages that could offend Jews. In performing Elijah in England, Mendelssohn also had to consider differences of cultural expectation that might exist between Berlin and England, where, following the great popularity G.F. Handel, robust choral works commanded supreme respect. His admiration for Britain was not necessarily an adequate underpinning for mounting the first performance. Some critics view a further concern that comes from Mendelssohn's perfectionism, whereby religious expression may sometimes yield to esthetic goals. As an idealist, Mendelssohn made multiple changes to both the music and the text (in particular its finale) between the Birmingham and London performances.

The composer imagined a third oratorio provisionally called Erde, Hoelle, Himmel, or Christus (Op. 97) to completed a trilogy. Only a few fragments of the work remain. Mendelssohn died unexpectedly, apparently of a familial cardiovascular disease, on November 4, 1747. In Leipzig, where he had often conducted and taught, a moving funeral service was held three days later in the Paulinerkirche. Mendelssohn was buried next to his sister in the Trinity Cemetery, Berlin.

Mendelssohn the prodigy

Mendelssohn's devotion to the music of Bach dated back to his student years. When he was nine years old, his sister Fanny (then aged thirteen) memorized the whole of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. The following year he and his sister were admitted to the chorus of Berlin's Sing-Akademie. Its emphasis was on the preservation of choral music. Mendelssohn and his sister studied music theory privately with the Akademie's director, Zelter, whom Mendelssohn harbored thoughts of succeeding. Felix also took organ lessons from A.W. Bach. His progress under Zelter was truly amazing. By 1821 he had mastered figured bass, invertible counterpoint, and the writing of two- and three-voiced fugues. He was barely thirteen.

It was in these same years that Mendelssohn began to compose. Zelter's pedagogical model were drawn largely from the Prussian violinist Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721-1783), who had been a pupil of Bach and greatly admired his Thuringian master. Kirnberger especially championed Bach's Clavieruebungen and his chorale preludes (BWV 690-713). Kirnberger is remembered today for his composition manual Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik and his tweaks on equal-tempered tuning. While Mendelssohn's devotion to Bach took shape under Zelter, Zelter himself synthesized the values of the Sing-Akademie with pedagogical foundations laid by Kirnberger.

The Sing-Akademie fostered choral performance as an ultimate proof of worthiness of music of the past. In the years since its founding it had accumulated a considerable collection of choral scores, all of them preserved in manuscript. Choral societies were widely popular in Europe from the mid-eighteenth century well into the nineteenth, but despite there are ubiquity, printed scores were the exception.

There was, however, an immediate obstacle: pieces by Bach were rarely found in performing editions. In the eternal battle between editors and performers, Mendelssohn was a purist who preferred to present exactly what the notated, without additional adornments. The long traditional of German editions that connects his day to ours largely upholds this value, but supplies a critical apparatus to document emendations and alternatives.

The Making of Elijah

Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah has sometimes been regarded as a monument of its time. Among its musical peers Handel's Messiah is often cited. Its announcement of the coming of a savior serves a common purpose. Mendelssohn's enthusiasm for the work new no bounds. At times it was an obsession. Elijah was more than ten years in the making. The composer recommended that the librettist, Karl Klingemann (1798-1862), pay close attention to Chapters 60 and 63 of Elijah plus the Lamentations and "all the Psalms." Many of his major decisions on the work were made during the month following his marriage (28 March 1837). Yet the offer of another libretto on the same subject seem to freeze work on the project. It was completed only twelve years later--on the text of the Rev. James Barry. Some of the intermittent time was taken up with discussions of how "poetical" the text should be. The mood was such that friends and advisors underscored the need to "move" listeners." In the end it was Schubring who had the greatest influence on Mendelssohn's text. He also believed that chorales had the greatest impact on the reception of an oratorio.

Mendelssohn was fond the England. He attended music festivals in both 1837 and 1840. (Both festivals were benefits for the Birmingham General Hospital.) Mendelssohn was invited to conduct at the Birmingham festival of 1846. Although a date for the performance of Mendelssohn's next work was selected, the composer became anxious about his ability to complete it in adequate time for rehearsals. He was also uncertain about having the stamina to conduct the other works at the festival. In December 1845 he formally accepted the invitation to conduct his own work but declined to lead that of others, unless the committee would be interested in performing his Midsummer Night's Dream or his A-Minor symphony. Two months before the intended premiere, the work of copying the oratorio had not begun. The festival's choral master was helpful in dealing with some of the practicalities of preparation. Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870) later agreed to conduct the other works. (Like Mendelssohn, Moscheles was born and raised a Jew, but he joined the Church of England after moving there around 1830.) Jenny Lind (1820-1887), who had recently made her German debut at Leipzig's Gewandhaus, declined an invitation of Birmingham, but she and Mendelssohn soon became good friends.

The original setting of Elijah was based on a German text. William Bartholomew (1793-1867), its eventual translator into English, was well known for his rendering of foreign texts in natural-sounding English. Because the music was still being composed when details of the festival were set, Bartholomew was forced to make the translation one installment at a time. Details of individual passages were discussed by post within weeks of the first performance. The parts were use-tested in Leipzig. Mendelssohn continued to make small changes to arias in Birmingham rehearsals. On 23 August 1846 a delegation consisting of the composer, soloists, orchestra members, and a press corps boarded a train at Euston Station for Birmingham. The first performance was given three days later. The festival as a whole employed 396 performers (271 in the chorus and 125 in the orchestra). Elijah was immediately hailed as a "great work of art". Eight numbers had encores.

Parts for this edition of Elijah

These integral parts were edited and prepared by Walter Hewlett for a performance in Carnegie Hall, New York, in 2014. The Orchestra of St. Luke's performed with Krista Bennion Feeney, concert mistress.

Woodwinds

• Flute 1
• Flute 2
• Oboe 1
• Oboe 2
• Clarinet 1
• Clarinet 2
• Bassoon 1
• Bassoon 2
• Bassoon 3

Brasses and Timpani

• Horn 1
• Horn 2
• Horn 3
• Horn 4
• Trumpet 1
• Trumpet 2
• Trombone 1
• Trombone 2
• Trombone 3 (Bass trombone)
• Tuba (Ophicleide)
• Timpani

Strings

• Violin 1
• Violin 2
• Viola
• Violoncello
• Contrabass