Mendelssohn: Sacred choral music Few composers have been so thwarted by posterity as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Though revered in his lifetime as an outstanding representative of early 19th-century German music, in the concert hall of today his music generally plays only a minor role. Were it not for strokes of genius like the Overture to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the ‘Italian’ Symphony and the Violin Concerto, then Mendelssohn would be promptly assigned to the second or third rank alongside Carl Loewe and Heinrich Marschner. His songs, once so popular, the piano music, and the string quartets, once considered stylistically innovative, have now largely become peripheral. One cannot help feeling that this process of selection is highly restrictive, particularly in comparison with contemporaries like Schumann or Chopin, a greater amount of whose work has been accepted. And the choral music, undoubtedly one of the highlights of Mendelssohn’s oeuvre, has suffered an even worse fate: little has survived the posthumous process of selection except the two great oratorios St Paul and Elijah, and a few smaller pieces. There are various reasons for this development. Today Mendelssohn hardly enjoys the esteem reflected in his distinguished position in European cultural and intellectual life around 1840. As has often been claimed this may be blamed partly on the fact that the National Socialists outlawed the composer and boycotted his works; his oeuvre has indeed still not entirely recovered from this complete ban on performance under the Third Reich. Likewise opinions on the course of Mendelssohn’s life continue to suffer from views not entirely free from prejudices sometimes dangerously close to anti-Semitism. This was already prompted in 1850 by Richard Wagner’s fatal pamphlet on Judaism in Music, and it would seem that more or less artistically based objections to Mendelssohn which had already been ventilated were simply but perfidiously misused by the Nazis. Changing eras Nevertheless, for many contemporaries it was already difficult to piece together two ideas: on the one hand the picture of the well brought-up child genius with the creative facility of a Mozart, an image so impressively confirmed by Mendelssohn in the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Octet for strings; on the other hand the idea of the privileged artist of the emerging Romantic era, who, in the footsteps of Beethoven, cherished the titanic struggle with each note and each phrase as true greatness. Moreover, Mendelssohn’s religious works, which constitute a large part of his choral music, suffered long before 1933 from the prejudice that a Jew who had been converted to Protestantism could not possible create satisfactory church music. Such clichés, which have unfortunately marked appreciation considerably in the 19th and 20th centuries, reflect at best the surface of a much deeper problem: a fundamental uncertainty concerning questions disputed intensely around 1800 in particular: in which direction was post-classical music to move, upon which sources, references and models was it to be based, and, more concretely, what concept of contemporary church music, for instance, was to evolve? Mendelssohn, born in the first decade of the 19th century, found himself in the middle of this aesthetic debate at the stylistic turningpoint of the early romantic period. Though brought up from 1819 in a strictly classical tradition by his teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter, an experience surely strengthened by his early personal contact with Goethe, the new sound of the late works of Beethoven (and Schubert) can hardly have escaped the attention of this genius for long. It was increasingly evident that by the time of Haydn’s death in 1809 at the latest, this aesthetic canon too, which until then had provided the stylistic and formal point of reference for every classical piece, had lost 1
its validity. Symptomatic in this context were the difficulties experienced by romantic composers in writing new works in genres for which Beethoven had redrawn the boundaries. While Haydn and Mozart, for instance, had gone on composing symphonies without worrying about the genre, Beethoven had already disrupted the form with the Eroica, and went on to define it anew in each composition. For the young Mendelssohn this meant that reorientation on tradition was hardly a matter of course if his work was to represent more than an imitative reinstatement of obsolete rules. In order to achieve genuine continuation and development of the musical heritage he therefore needed to find a balance between the budding romantic age and his own more classical character and upbringing. It can hardly be disputed that he entirely succeeded, as such works as the ‘Italian’ Symphony, the Hebrides Overture and the string quartets go to show. Candles and incense? In the field of sacred music, on the other hand, matters were far more complicated. Beside the stylistic basis of contemporary musical language a first concern was to define anew the function and liturgical role of church music. Mendelssohn was confronted by strongly regressive moves in both Christian confessions, aimed to drastically limit the significance of music in the service and to subject it more strongly to the liturgical framework. This was the response to the increasing emancipation of religiously inspired music, a liberation from the church both as edifice and institution. Beethoven had expressed this in the grand and profoundly personal interpretation of the Mass text in his Missa Solemnis, not to forget the later masses by Joseph Haydn. While these works gradually made their way from the church to the concert hall, a deliberate reversion to older models served to adapt and subordinate church music to the liturgy once more. In the Roman Catholic church this historicism by decree, emanating from the Sistine Chapel in Rome, led to a reappraisal of early Italian examples and initiated nothing less than a Palestrina revival. The Protestant church, on the other hand, focused mainly on the venerable tradition of the Lutheran chorale. The Prussian Liturgy of 1816, enlarged in 1822 and 1829, propagated this ‘new’ form of church music on an administrative and theological level Mendelssohn followed these endeavours with interest, but from a critical distance. In a letter dating from 1835 he gave considerable thought to the question of ‘how music could become an integrated part of the service, rather than purely a concert demanding more or less attention’. While arguing against a liturgy freed of music (‘not purely a concert’), entirely in line with the Prussian Liturgy, he saw no convincing solution in a forced reversion to the early masters: ‘... of original church or [...] liturgical music I know only early Italian works for the Papal Chapel, where music is purely accompanimental, however, subservient to its function and serving in the same way as the candles, incense etc.’ Such subordination contradicted his self-awareness as a composer and universally educated heir to the classical masters – which is hardly surprising, especially in view of the rather bloodless products of historicism and the equally consciously anachronistic Cecilian movement. ‘These compositions were worthless’ he wrote brusquely in a letter on the music at St Peter’s in Rome. Naturally, the 18-year-old Mendelssohn already believed the role of his music to be other than that of ‘candles’ and ‘incense’. At that time, in 1827, he became acquainted with the jurist and theoretician Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut in Heidelberg, an advocate of renewal in church music. Two years earlier Thibaut had come to public notice with his tract ‘Concerning the Purity of Music’ in which, as the title suggests, he called for a ‘church style devoted exclusively to piety’ and therefore always ‘moderate, serious, worthy, noble and without passion’. Though Mendelssohn was not without admiration for Thibaut, he wrote shrewdly to his mother: ‘It is odd: the man knows little about music, even his historical knowledge of it is rather limited, he usually acts purely on instinct [...] – and yet I have learnt immeasurably from him [...]. For he has shed light on early Italian music, he has drawn me to it through his fiery enthusiasm.’ Mendelssohn was surely likewise drawn to Thibaut’s basic principle, according to which religious composition, as ‘holy music’, 2
presupposed a ‘profound, comforting, contemplative and pure mind; he thus gave the composer an ideal embracing elevation, gravity and purity which was to mark the style of his church music throughout his life. And under these premises Mendelssohn sought his own creative approach to the music of Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso. A first product of this continuing debate was the motet Tu es Petrus, completed in the autumn of 1827 and dedicated to his sister Fanny upon her birthday. In the letter to his mother, however, a striking phrase already appears, indicating that Mendelssohn hardly intended to be tied down to a particular musical ideal: the ‘main and most important matter’, he wrote, is entirely ‘unknown’ to Thibaut – for in the end, the young composer realised, ‘everything comes together ... in Sebastian’. Bach’s example He was of course referring to Johann Sebastian Bach, whose work the young Mendelssohn first became familiar with through piano lessons with the Clementi pupil Ludwig Berger in about 1816. From 1819 his composition teacher Zelter, a friend of Goethe, aroused his growing enthusiasm for the music of the cantor of the Thomaskirche. Despite the prevailing low regard for the music of Johann Sebastian at the time, in Berlin circles it still enjoyed a certain esteem thanks to the efforts of his pupil Johann Philipp Kirnberger and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel. For Mendelssohn too this polyphonic art, quite contradictory to the taste of the time, was anything but antiquated: in Bach he at last found the example that could inspire him to revitalise church music. Accordingly, in the 1820s Mendelssohn’s preoccupation with Bach became increasingly central. In terms of music history the consequences were exceptionally far-reaching. First and foremost was the pioneering rediscovery of the St Matthew Passion, which he performed in his own version on 11 and 21 March 1829 with Zelter’s Berliner Singakademie. This courageous defence of a supposed anachronism became a milestone, providing an initial impetus for the Bach revival of the 19th century; moreover, it helped decisively in awarding at last the due place in history to one of its most outstanding composers. This intensive preoccupation was no less fruitful for Mendelssohn’s own creative work. Between 1827 and 1832 he composed no fewer than eight chorale cantatas, in which the influence of Bach unmistakeably gains ground. The Preludes and Fugues Op.35 for piano should also be mentioned, as well as the sixteen-part Hora est (1828) with its manifest reference to the Mass in B minor in the Ecce apparebit fugue. The series of chorale-based works in the spirit of Bach began in late 1827 with the three-movement Christe, du Lamm Gottes, after Luther’s German version of the Agnus Dei from the mass. Jesu, meine Freude, dating from January of the following year, must have been immediately prompted by Bach’ s motet (BWV227) of the same name; as in Christe the cantus firmus of the chorale is mainly in the soprano part. A year later, in 1829, Mendelssohn wrote the cantata Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten for solo, chorus and strings. Here the composer deviated from the hitherto prevalent custom of writing several movements within what was essentially a single structure, creating four separate movements contrasting with one another through different composition techniques (choral writing, solo aria, unisono). This ‘most serious little church music’ was inspired (as the composer confided to his sister) by the painting of Mary and John returning from Mount Calvary by Antonio del Castillo y Saavedra, which Mendelssohn had seen in Munich. The Christmas cantata on Luther’s Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her, for the new year of 1830/31, rings out with a quite different and far more festive sound. Like its companion cantate on Luther’s version of the Creed, Wir glauben all an einen Gott, written in the following spring, the Christmas cantata requires a considerably larger orchestra and, with its six separate movements, creates a remarkably ambitious impression. Mendelssohn was quite obviously inspired by the splendour and magnificence of Bach’s opening 3
choruses, such as that from the Christmas oratorio or the election cantatas. This influence finally culminated in the cantata Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, dating from April 1832. Here Mendelssohn not only adapted with astonishing superiority the compositional resources of his Baroque example to his own musical language, but also quoted directly from Bach’s St John Passion: the high chromaticism at the words ‘Sie lehren eitel falsche List’ is taken almost literally from the choruses ‘Wir dürfen niemand töten’ and ‘Wäre dieser nicht ein Übeltäter’. Compared to these latter chorale cantatas, Verleih uns Frieden, written a year earlier in February 1831 and called a ‘Prayer’ by Mendelssohn, is considerably more restrained. Perhaps for this very reason, nevertheless, this single-movement, enchantingly profound piece, with its eloquent arabesques for two solo cellos, represents a harmonious fusion of Baroque and Romantic styles, to a degree only felt again in Elijah. Thus in 1844 Robert Schumann enthused suggestively: ‘This little piece deserves to be world famous, and will indeed be so in the future. Madonnas by Raphael and Murillo cannot remain hidden for long.’ Successful balance In view of such quality it is astonishing that most of the chorale cantatas remained unpublished; not until 1972-1983 were they saved one by one from obscurity. We may conclude from this, despite the euphoria expressed frequently in letters during their composition, that Mendelssohn, in his extreme self-criticism, viewed them in the end only as studies which created the basis, as it were, for later sacred works. Today, however, we recognise the strongly individual and authentic nature of music viewed from the outside as Bach-emulation in a supposedly imitative framework. This goes even more for the extensive series of psalm compositions that commenced with Psalm 115 in 1829 – the period of the cantatas. In Nicht unserm Namen, Herr (Op.31), in addition to the support of Bach’s polyphony and echoes of Mozart’s late church music, a certain influence of Handel is felt – his Dixit Dominus had been specially copied by Mendelssohn. The numerous early choral works by the young composer (e.g. Jube Domine and the Magnificat, both of 1822, and the motet Jesus, meine Zuversicht of 1824) prepared the way, as it were, for the fertile encounter with Bach. After early attempts around 1820/21, the psalms likewise suggest that the exchange with the Baroque masters Bach and Handel suddenly resulted for the first time in stylistic consistency and self-confidence. On this foundation Mendelssohn wrote a notable series of individual psalm settings between 1837-1844: psalm 42 (Wie der Hirsch schreit, 1837), 95 (Kommt, lasst uns anbeten 1838), 114 (Da Israel aus Ägypten zog, 1839), 98 (Singet dem Herrn, 1843) and 100 (Jauchzet dem Herrn, 1844, a cappella); to these may be added two English adaptations of Psalm 5 (Lord, hear the voice) and 31 (Defend me, Lord) in February 1839, various psalm settings (1843) and the three a cappella pieces op. 78 (Psalms 2, 43 and 22). The latter were composed for the Dom choir in Berlin, which Mendelssohn directed in the 1843/44 season. Related to the psalm compositions are the captivating hymn for soprano and chorus Hear my Prayer (1844), after Psalm 55 vv.2-8, and the motet Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen (1844) after psalm 61, for double chorus, which Mendelssohn incorporated later in Elijah. As little as one is able to reduce the chorale cantatas from the perspective of posterity to the mere role of preparatory studies, as much it becomes clear that in his impressive collection of psalms Mendelssohn apparently realised his ideal concerning contemporary church music. These pieces cannot simply be fitted into the liturgical situation as some sort of elevated utility music, but have without question an effect of their own. Nevertheless, they do not cast off the liturgical framework in the manner of Beethoven’s Ninth or Mendelssohn’s ‘Reformation’ Symphony and Lobgesang (despite the similarly religious concept), to say nothing of the emerging art-religion movement, 4
which reached its heights after 1880 in musical manifestos embracing visions of the world: Richard Wagner’s Parsifal and Gustav Mahler’s symphonies. While these works lent expression to the strongly subjective syncretism of the late 19th century, an age long shaken in questions of faith, Mendelssohn’s Psalms 42 and 95, for example, embodied on the contrary an almost Baroque piety, which cannot only be explained by corresponding examples from that age, but rather by Mendelssohn’s personal religious feelings. Numerous accounts reveal that as a baptised Jew he took the Protestant faith more seriously than many of his Christian contemporaries, a fact still neglected because of the anti-Semitic distortion of a later date. His choice of subjects and texts was guided without exception by his conviction, bearing witness to his comprehensive religious education and knowledge of the Scriptures. The perfectly harmonic development of both mind and music refutes not in the last place the frequently heard reproach that Mendelssohn’s reorientation on Baroque music went to restitute an ideal of fervour and orthodoxy which the Enlightenment had questioned long before. In terms of composition, however, the psalm settings also cast light on another matter: in works such as the hymn Hear my Prayer, or Psalm 114 for double chorus with its echoes of Handel, a perfectly harmonic balance appears to be achieved between the after-effects of the Baroque tradition (form concept, polyphonic technique etc.) and the melodic tension and cantabile so typical of Mendelssohn; the latter features unmistakeably arise from the spirit of Romanticism, but are remoulded in a classical sense, as it were. As his biographer Eric Werner aptly remarked, Mendelssohn’s sacred music has ‘a Janus face, turned both to the past and to the future.’ Miscellaneous pieces All in all this sacred oeuvre, including countless miscellaneous movements and a number of unpublished pieces, amounts to some hundred works, which can be divided into two distinct groups. On the one hand are the youthful works written before 1827, when the creative encounter with Bach began, largely for the Singakademie in Berlin. Among these are the Kyrie settings in C minor (1823) and D minor (1825), the Gloria (1822) and the eight-part Te Deum (1826) – all astonishing compositions by a youth in early maturity. A youth, however, distinguished less by stylistic individuality than by a remarkable mixture of musical influences: these begin with exercises in a strict imitative style stimulated by the Palestrina ideal of the Cecilian Movement, moving on to the polychoral technique required of the Venetian Renaissance, and ending with the church music style of the classical composers Haydn and Mozart. By and large it is hardly detrimental to these notable pieces to view them as the compositional reconnaissance of a budding genius. On the other hand are the mature works written from about 1830, beginning with the chorale cantatas and already crowned with the psalms in the late 1830s. Naturally, this group also includes Mendelssohn’s major works, the oratorios St Paul and Elijah, and the Christus fragment written in 1847, the year of his death. It also features a miscellaneous series of pieces: though their purpose and function in terms of church music is far from clear, they may for this very reason be symptomatic of the diversity of Mendelssohn’s approach to renewal. In this sense the Three Sacred Pieces op.23 (1830), the first of his sacred works intended for publication, was a taste of things to come: in the choice of text – two Lutheran chorales alongside the Catholic Ave Maria – they forced the boundaries of liturgical and indeed denominational territories; all the more indicative is that they were originally published under the mediatory and enigmatic title of Church Music. While these works thus served a higher ideal of religious devotion, the three Latin motets for female chorus and organ Op.39, like the 5
vesper hymn Adspice Domine Op.121, were clearly intended for the Catholic liturgy. The motets recall the Italian journey of 1830, when Mendelssohn was enchanted by the sound of the nuns’ choir (out of the visitor’s sight) at the monastery of S Trinità de’ Monti. The Sechs Sprüche zum Kirchenjahr Op.79, on the other hand, were written expressly for the Protestant liturgy; employing favourite texts of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, Mendelssohn composed them when he was Generalmusikdirektor in Berlin. After another revision of the Prussian Liturgy in 1843, only a single moment between the epistle and Alleluia remained in the Reformed liturgy for more ambitious music. Entirely in accordance with these strict limitations, and therefore with the taste of the Prussian king, is the setting of The German Liturgy (1846) after Luther’ s translation of the Mass, likewise written for the Dom in Berlin. Incomparably more ambitious was the Catholic Lauda Sion Op.73, commissioned by the church of St Martin in Lüttich for the 600th celebration of the festival of Corpus Christi. Although the first performance on 11 June 1846 took place during a service (with a sermon and presentation of the host), Mendelssohn only partially observed the restraint required in Catholic church music. Instead he combined a degree of Baroque festivity, appropriate to the occasion, with that solemn and sometimes more relaxed lyrical mood that he had learnt both from Luigi Cherubini (whose church music was highly esteemed at the time) and from Mozart’s C minor Mass. The Motets Op.69 comprise three a cappella pieces: the Nunc Dimittis, a second setting of Psalm 100 and a German Magnificat; in these last complete choral compositions Mendelssohn took a final step towards an exemplary fusion of all stylistic models and influences. He once again achieved, perhaps more consistently than ever, that complete pervasion of polyphonic technique and chorale setting in emulation of Bach, vivid and detailed text expression, and fine-strung melody; moreover, the sublime musical expression united the purity of the Palestrina style with the intensity of romantic feeling. This was the rarely attained synthesis of which Robert Schumann wrote when he declared that Mendelssohn, in comparison with other composers of his age, was ‘the brightest musician, who had the clearest comprehension of the contradictions of the time and was the first to reconcile them.’ Christian Wildhagen Translation: Stephen Taylor
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