Difference between revisions of "Elijah"

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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.
 
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.
  
Mendelssohn began to conceptualize his oratorio <i>Elijah</i> in 1837, on the heels of completing his well-received St. Paul oratorio. 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 Birmingham in 1846 but not sending to press a final version until the following year. It was performed in London in April 1847.
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Mendelssohn began to conceptualize his oratorio <i>Elijah</i> in 1837, on the heels of completing his well-received oratorio <i>Paul</i> (<i>Paulus</i> . 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 Birmingham in 1846 but not sending to press a final version until the following year. It was performed in London in April 1847.
  
 
== Parts ==
 
== Parts ==

Revision as of 01:37, 2 February 2021

Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah, Op. 70

The Making of Elijah

Felix Mendelssohn's contributions to sacred vocal and choral music were prefigured by those of 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. His 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 joined 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 Zelter, then the director of the Sing-Akademie, whom Mendelssohn harbored thoughts of succeeding at the Sing-Akademie, and Felix alone took organ lessons from A.W. Bach. By 1821 he had mastered figured bass, invertible counterpoint, and the writing of two- and three-voiced fugues. These were remarkable achievements for a lad of barely thirteen.

It was in these years that the prodigy 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 master. Kirnberger especially championed Bach's Clavieruebungen and his chorale preludes (BWV 690-713). Kirnberger is best known today for his composition manual Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik and his tweaks of equal-tempered tuning. We see then that if Mendelssohn's devotion to Bach took shape under Zelter, Zelter himself synthesized the values of the Sing-Akademie with pedagogical foundations laid by Kirnberger.

What we learn from this phase of Mendelssohn's musical education is that he was immersed in the music of J.S. Bach before he reached adolescence. 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.

Mendelssohn began to conceptualize his oratorio Elijah in 1837, on the heels of completing his well-received oratorio 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 Birmingham in 1846 but not sending to press a final version until the following year. It was performed in London in April 1847.

Parts