Glimpses of Handel in the Choral-Orchestral Psalms of Mendelssohn Zachary D. Durlam elix Mendelssohn was drawn to music of the Baroque era. His early training Funder Carl Friedrich Zelter included study and performance of works by Bach and Handel, and Mendelssohn continued to perform, study, and conduct compositions by these two composers throughout his life. While Mendels- sohn’s regard for J. S. Bach is well known (par- ticularly through his 1829 revival of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion), his interaction with the choral music of Handel deserves more scholarly at ten- tion. Mendelssohn was a lifelong proponent of Handel, and his contemporaries attest to his vast knowledge of Handel’s music. By age twenty- two, Mendelssohn could perform a number of Handel oratorio choruses from memory, and two years later, fellow musician Carl Breidenstein remarked that “[Mendelssohn] has complete knowledge of Handel’s works and has captured their spirit.”1 Zachary D. Durlam Director of Choral Activities Assistant Professor of Music University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
[email protected] 28 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 56 Number 10 George Frideric Handel Felix Mendelssohn Glimpses of Handel in the Choral- Mendelssohn’s self-perceived familiarity with Handel’s Mendelssohn’s Psalm 115 compositions is perhaps best summed up in the follow- and Handel’s Dixit Dominus ing anecdote about English composer William Sterndale During an 1829 visit to London, Mendelssohn was Bennett: allowed to examine Handel manuscripts in the King’s Library. Among these scores, he discovered and