Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Elijah, Op. 70 Oratorio after Words of the Old Testament – Program Notes

And Behold, the Lord passed by…

The oratorio as a musical genre was initially created to entertain and educate during the season of Lent when Opera was banned. The most well-known oratorio is Handel’s Messiah amongst his many other compositions within the genre. Haydn took up Handel’s mantel and followed with even more dramatic works, evolving the genre. The popularization of the form by the eighteenth-century promoted the genre to one of the most favorite amongst the Romantic era audiences. This status led to the creation of the Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival held in Birmingham, England every three years. A three-day festival, the organizers regularly commissioned a new oratorio to be performed. In 1837, the festival invited twenty-eight-year-old Felix Mendelssohn to conduct his recently premiered oratorio, St. Paul. The success St. Paul enjoyed at the Birmingham Festival provided an already in-vogue and widely reputed Mendelssohn with a commission for yet another oratorio, a work with which the composer would cement his place in music history – Elijah.

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was born on 3 February in Hamburg, then under Napoleonic rule. He was well-versed in drama, religion, rhetoric, and music history – the perfect combination for a composer of oratorio. Felix was the grandson of Jewish Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Felix was born Jewish but baptized a Protestant at the age of seven along with his siblings in a political effort by his family to avoid widespread discrimination. Felix was of course mindful of his Judaic roots. His specific beliefs are not deeply understood, nor commonly spoken of. Nevertheless, he remained understandably proud of his grandfather’s intellectual legacy and Jewish heritage. He would take on an active role in shaping how Elijah, an Old Testament prophet’s story, should be told. The music of J.S. Bach also had a profound influence on Mendelssohn’s compositional style. Mendelssohn is partly responsible for the nineteenth-century revival of Bach’s music and notoriety (Bach was practically unknown not long after his death). When he was just seventeen, Mendelssohn received a manuscript copy of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion from his grandmother. The piece had not been heard for almost a century until Mendelssohn conducted it at just twenty years old. The performance followed three years of study, edits, and cuts to bring the work down to around two hours. His affinity for this early music drama, along with Handel’s well-known oratorio choruses, would influence Mendelssohn throughout his career, particularly in his own oratorio – Elijah.

The Elijah project was on Mendelssohn’s mind as early as 1837, but he did not begin work on the score until he received the invitation in the summer of 1845 to compose the piece for the Birmingham Festival. The oratorio’s libretto (text) was written by Julius Schubring (William Bartholomew translated the text into English, which we will perform today). The primary source for the text of Elijah is taken from numerous sections of the Old Testament, particularly 1 and 2 Kings. The text combines direct Biblical quotations with paraphrases and other texts that broaden numerous events from the Old Testament. Elijah is different from Handel’s typical archetypes. Elijah directly confronts the well-known Handelian tradition. The biggest issue for Mendelssohn, however, was that the story found in 1 Kings 17-19 itself is not very well known. This issue was the primary reason Schubring decided to insert portions from other chapters of the Bible, something Handel also often did. Complimentary texts were pulled from Deuteronomy, Exodus, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, Psalms, Malachi, and the gospel of Matthew.

The libretto has been the greatest source of criticism of Elijah from both Mendelssohn’s contemporaries as well as musicologists. Chester Alwes perhaps captures the piece’s shortcomings best, stating “The libretto illustrates the lack of temporal coherence increasingly found in nineteenth-century oratorio libretti in sharp contrast to the earlier adherence to the Metastasian unities of time, place, and action, mostly seen and heard in opera seria.” Schubring’s best elements present themselves at both the end of the first part, where Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal, as well as when Elijah encounters God towards the end of the second part. The ending lacks a lyrical punch typically found at the end of Oratorios, but luckily, not musically. The oratorio was positioned in two parts, each with twenty-two numbers. We will omit a few movements in today’s performance that hold less musical and dramatic value (similar to what Mendelssohn did to Bach’s St. Matthew). Musically, the oratorio consists of mixtures of recitatives, arias, and choral movements – many of them threaded together to seamlessly form extended sections, or scenes, of continuous music. Most scholars agree Elijah represents Mendelssohn’s most ambitious attempt to compose on a large, grand scale, and represents some of his greatest successes within the genre – it would be his last major work.

Elijah premiered on 26 August 1846 to great acclaim. The first performance used just short of 400 musicians: some 125 in the orchestra with doubled winds and about 270 in the chorus. As musicologist Michael Steinberg stated in his essay on the piece, “space does not permit a description of all the musical events of Elijah. It is hardly necessary, anyway. Attention to the words will open the way to the music, just as, conversely, the music illuminates the texts and the events.” I will select a few details to highlight as you listen today, all the same. The opening of Elijah is unlike most oratorios, as it begins with a recitative by the title character. Part I forms a serious, highly structured labyrinth, with a clear tonal plan (focused on the keys of D-minor and E-flat major) and recurring motivic material. Two primary motives, which return melodically and harmonically in multiple iterations throughout the work, appear in Elijah’s opening recitative: a glorified, rising triadic figure (d-f-a-d) associated with Elijah as a servant of the Lord (God’s strength); and a discordant series of descending augmented fourths (c-f#, g-c#, d-g#) underscored by the brass and the curse-like pronouncement (famine), “there shall not be dew nor rain these years.” Following the Overture (one of Mendelssohn’s most serious orchestral extracts, the fugal, D-minor writing reminiscent of Mozart’s Don Giovanni), the chorus rides the ever-rising wave with its opening chorus “Help, Lord!”. Following the curse of famine and drought, the major section of Part I focuses in on the scene where Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal. Elijah’s mockery of the priests of Baal when their god fails to answer their appeal provides the occasion for a delightful, if not humorous, scene: The dissonant, shrill, chords from the woodwinds that echo the Prophet’s acerbic “Call him louder!” show the humanity, good and bad, of this titular character. The following rage aria “Is Not His Word like a Fire” not only shows Mendelssohn’s careful understanding of modern-day opera, but also Handel, comparable to Messiah’s “Why Do The Nations.” Elijah prays for rain as Part I ends, infusing drama and suspense into the audience’s deserved intermission.

Whereas Part I focuses on the cultural and political events of Elijah’s narrative, Part II focuses more on who Elijah the prophet was as a human – his struggles. The opening aria, “Hear Ye, Israel”, was composed for famed nineteenth-century soprano Jenny Lind and sets the stage for a few “Bachian” moments found in Part II. The B-minor aria cast in 3/8 time recalls Mendelssohn’s deep affinity for the St. Matthew Passion. Michael Steinberg notes that “F-sharp was Mendelssohn’s favorite note in Lind’s voice, and that note would inevitably be especially prominent in a B-minor/major aria.” Lind, unfortunately, would not sing the aria until after Mendelssohn’s death. Another Bach Passion mirror can be found in no. 26, Elijah’s great aria “It is enough, O Lord, now take away my life” where Elijah thinks he can withstand no more. The title translates in German to “es ist genug”, which is not far off of Bach’s aria from the St. John Passion “es ist volbracht,” also sung in a low tessitura, but by a mezzo-soprano. The added solo cello further connects the two arias, along with contrasting middle sections, highlighting the composer’s deep appreciation and affinity for one of the original musical drama composers. Of perhaps a smaller note, no. 27 mentions a Juniper tree, something all Prescottonians can get excited about. Audience favorite “Lift Thine Eyes” sung by three treble singers is followed by the great chorus “He watcheth over Israel”, certainly some of Mendelssohn’s most memorable vocal ensemble writing within the entire work.

While the libretto’s drama weakens towards the end of the piece, the music most certainly does not. The concluding chorus is a fugue centered firmly in D-major and is reminiscent of the conclusion of Handel’s Messiah (Blessing and honor… not Hallelujah). The subject contains rising interlocked fourths (d-g, f#-b) which now lay in contrast to the descending tritones previously found in the introduction. The final contrapuntal declamations of “Amen” affirm Elijah’s chariot ride into heaven, overcoming the “famine” tritone one final time. These final musical moments highlight Mendelssohn’s overarching theme that with perseverance and faith, there can be beauty found at the end of a long journey.

Nineteenth-century music critic Henry Fothergill Chorley stated after the London premiere “Elijah is not only the sacred work of our time, we dare fearlessly to assert, but it is a work ‘for our children and for our children’s children.” While the work has indeed morphed throughout history, including our performance today which features a reduced orchestration by Joachim Linckelmann, Elijah is still one of the most significant pieces of art in our history. Mendelssohn’s story of hope and overcoming profound adversity are just as paramount today as they were in the nineteenth-century. No matter what your religious beliefs are, we hope that the beauty, drama, genius, intellect, and musical artistry today move you in a way that indeed, you might even feel that –

And Behold, the Lord passed by.