Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)

CHAN 10363 MENDELSSOHN Sacred Choral Works Richard Marlow Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge 48 Richard49 Marlow CCHANHAN 1103630363 BBook.inddook.indd 448-498-49 222/8/062/8/06 110:44:410:44:41 Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) Sacred Choral Works Sechs Sprüche für das Kirchenjahr, Op. 79 (1843–46) 9:44 Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library for eight-part choir 1 I Weihnachten. Allegro moderato 1:29 2 II Am Neujahrstage. Andante 2:05 3 III Am Himmelfahrtstage. Allegro maestoso e moderato 1:29 4 IV In der Passionszeit. Adagio 1:33 Rachel Bennett soprano • Clare Wilkinson contralto Andrew Tortise tenor • Angus McCarey bass 5 V Im Advent. Andante 1:28 6 VI Am Charfreitage. Sostenuto e grave 1:21 Hear my prayer (1844) 10:38 Hymn for soprano and choir Rachel Bennett soprano Mark Williams organ 7 Hear my prayer, O God, incline thine ear! Andante – Allegro moderato – Sostenuto – 5:40 8 O for the wings of a dove! Con un poco più di moto 4:59 Felix Mendelssohn, Frankfurt 1842 3 CCHANHAN 1103630363 BBook.inddook.indd 22-3-3 222/8/062/8/06 110:44:260:44:26 9 Beati mortui, Op. 115 No. 1 (1833) 2:54 14 Der hundertste Psalm ‘Jauchzet dem Herrn, for four-part male choir a cappella alle Welt’ (1842) 4:02 Paul Casey tenor • Andrew Tortise tenor for choir and solo voices Christopher Adams bass • Angus McCarey bass Helen Deeming soprano • Paula Downes soprano Andante sostenuto Catherine Arnold contralto • Clare Wilkinson contralto Paul Casey tenor • Andrew Tortise tenor Die deutsche Liturgie (1846) 6:29 Christopher Adams bass • Angus McCarey bass for double choir Andante con moto – Poco lento – Andante 10 Kyrie eleison. Andante sostenuto 1:14 Laudate pueri, Op. 39 No. 2 (1830) 5:37 11 Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe. Andante con moto – Allegro – for female choir Adagio – Allegro 3:42 Mark Williams organ Eugenie Cheng soprano • Clare Wilkinson contralto 15 Paul Casey tenor • Angus McCarey bass I Chor. Allegro moderato assai 3:22 16 12 2:15 Heilig. Con moto 1:25 II Terzett. Adagio Rachel Bennett soprano • Eugenie Cheng soprano Clare Wilkinson contralto 13 Ave Maria, Op. 23 No. 2 (1830) 6:40 for solo voices and eight-part choir 17 Rachel Bennett soprano • Eugenie Cheng soprano Magnifi cat (‘My soul doth magnify the Catherine Arnold contralto • Clare Wilkinson contralto Lord’), Op. 69 No. 3 (1847) 8:37 Paul Casey tenor • Andrew Tortise tenor for choir and solo voices Christopher Adams bass • Angus McCarey bass Rachel Bennett soprano • Clare Wilkinson contralto Mark Williams organ Andrew Tortise tenor • Christopher Adams bass Andante – Con moto – Andante Allegro moderato (Magnifi cat) – Andante con moto – Maestoso – Andante – Allegro – Grave (Gloria Patri) 4 5 CCHANHAN 1103630363 BBook.inddook.indd 44-5-5 222/8/062/8/06 110:44:280:44:28 Mendelssohn: Sacred Choral Works Drei Psalmen, Op. 78 (1843– 44) 18:17 Nearly 160 years after his death, the position diversity of Germany and Austria in his 18 1 Der zweite Psalm ‘Warum toben die Heiden’ 6:19 which Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) lifetime, balanced between the Protestant for choir and solo voices occupies as a crucial link between the North and Catholic South. Rachel Bennett soprano • Eugenie Cheng soprano classical style of Mozart and Beethoven Mendelssohn was in the forefront of the Catherine Arnold contralto • Clare Wilkinson contralto and the high romantic style of Schumann nineteenth-century revival of the music of Alastair Brookshaw tenor • Andrew Tortise tenor and Brahms is quite secure. Yet he is still J.S. Bach – he conducted the fi rst ‘modern’ Christopher Adams bass • Angus McCarey bass an imperfectly known composer, whose performance of the St Matthew Passion in Moderato – Andante – Con moto – Andante – Gloria Patri reputation continues to rest on a very 1829 – and his choral music owes a powerful 19 2 Der dreiundvierzigste Psalm ‘Richte mich, Gott’ 3:48 partial selection of his works: the last two debt to Bach’s infl uence. It is clear that he for eight-part choir symphonies, say, the Violin Concerto, often used Bach’s works as a model to enable Con moto – Andante – Allegro moderato the Hebrides overture, Midsummer Night’s him to create his own liturgical idiom; on 20 3 Der zweiundzwanzigste Psalm ‘Mein Gott, warum hast du Dream music, some of the major chamber the other hand the more recent traditions mich verlassen?’ 7:59 compositions and the Lieder ohne Worte. of the secular partsong, the Chorlied, also for choir and solo voices His sacred choral works – apart from the guided his melodic and harmonic writing. Helen Deeming soprano • Clare Wilkinson contralto oratorios Elijah and St Paul, and the hymn This stylistic blend makes Mendelssohn’s Paul Casey tenor • Andrew Tortise tenor Hear my prayer, all written for English choral music a bridge between the Bachian Christopher Adams bass • Angus McCarey bass performance – are very seldom heard. Yet baroque idiom and the richer romantic [ ] – Andante – Allegro – Andante con moto – Assai animato Mendelssohn, both a Jew and a Protestant, idiom of Brahms (who himself went back TT 74:03 devoted much of his energies and talents to Bach – and further back, to Gabrieli to music for liturgical use, and it forms a and Schütz – in fashioning his own choral substantial proportion of his output. A fair language). Mendelssohn’s sacred works do Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge amount of that proportion is composed not often approach Bach or Brahms in terms Richard Marlow to Latin texts, suitable for performance of spiritual profundity. But in their beauty in Catholic churches. This fact doubtless and serenity, their love of the human voice refl ects Mendelssohn’s own tolerant, and superb contrapuntal craftsmanship ecumenical spirit – and also the confessional they are an achievement with few parallels 6 7 CCHANHAN 1103630363 BBook.inddook.indd 66-7-7 222/8/062/8/06 110:44:290:44:29 in their own time, which have much pleasure of the solo ‘Terzett’ puts this among the to give emphasis to the poignant nature beautiful pieces making economical use of to impart to us today; and sometimes – most attractive of all Mendelssohn’s Latin of the soloist’s prayer through repetition antiphony between the choirs, one choir especially in the a cappella works of his last works. and elaboration, and also as a colourful either making responses to the other, or years – they rise to utterance of unmistakable If, outside of the oratorios, any single background to the aria. Mendelssohn imitating it contrapuntally. For example, in greatness. piece of Mendelssohn’s sacred music can subsequently made a version with orchestral the Kyrie the second chorus imitates the fi rst The Ave Maria for eight-part choir and claim to be well known, it is surely the accompaniment. at one bar’s distance, and this also happens organ is an early work, published in 1830 Hymn Hear my prayer (in German, Hör’ The four-part male chorus Beati mortui at the opening of the ‘Heilig’, in which each as the second of the three motets that make mein Bitten) for soprano, chorus and is the fi rst of a pair of sacred choruses chorus has a four-part canon. The ‘Ehre sei up his Op. 23. The skilful alternation of organ. That is undoubtedly because of the published posthumously as Op. 115: they Gott’ is the most elaborate of these pieces, solo voices and full chorus is evident from popularity it attained in the mid-twentieth are believed to date from around 1833. juxtaposing fast and slow tempi, and also the beginning, and the opening section century due to the famous recording made Largely and smoothly homophonic, with large choral masses against the pleading is conceived in a lulling, lilting 6/8 time. in 1929 by the boy soprano Ernest Lough occasional simple imitation between basses solo voices that emerge in the Adagio This changes to a more urgent Con moto with the choir of Temple Church: in fact and tenors or among all four parts, this section dealing with the Sins of the World. with running organ accompaniment as the the piece is often viewed as a vehicle for seems to belong as much to the tradition of The fi nal part features smooth polyphonic chorus implores the Virgin’s intercession. particularly gifted trebles. Mendelssohn the romantic Chorlied as to that of sacred writing of particular splendour, arriving at The opening music is then reprised in composed it in January 1844 at the behest music. Mendelssohn in fact composed it confi dent Amens. comprehensively enriched form, rising to a of the chemist, painter and violinist in German, adding the Latin text as an Mendelssohn made at least three settings peak of bright textural refulgence. William Bartholomew who had adapted alternative; and in German that text is of the 100th Psalm; of these, the one known Mendelssohn’s Op. 39, for women’s or translated many of the texts of the ‘Wie selig sind die Toten’, one of the ‘core’ by its German fi rst line Jauchzet dem chorus and organ, is similarly early and, like composer’s vocal works. The dedicatee, texts of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem. Herrn, alle Welt is a setting for chorus and Op. 23, contains three contrasted works of however, was the musical director of the Another link or foreshadowing of that work solo voices, believed to date from 1842. which Laudate pueri (whose manuscript Berlin Royal Opera, Karl Gottfried Taubert. is Mendelssohn’s Die deutsche Liturgie In a bright, blithe C major and direct in is dated 31 December 1830) is a motet in The text is a paraphrase of the fi rst for double chorus a cappella, a late work expression, this uses little counterpoint as two sections, the fi rst for chorus and organ seven verses of Psalm 55, whose contrasts intended for church use, of which the only such, being almost entirely a syllabic setting in E fl at, the second a contrasting number give plenty of scope for expressive word completed movements are a ‘Kyrie eleison’ in beautifully spaced homophony, gaining in A fl at, ‘Beati omnes’, for a ‘Terzett’ of painting.

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