Blacksburg Master Chorale Mendelssohn’s Elijah Dwight Bigler, music director Robert Chafin,tenor Branch Fields, bass Katherine Pracht, mezzo-soprano Danielle Talamantes, soprano Elijah, Op. 70 Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) about the Spiral Lift System at Part I Introduction: As God the Lord the Moss Arts Center No. 1 (Chorus): Help, Lord! No. 2 (Duet with Chorus): Lord, bow Thine ear No. 3 (Recitative): Ye people, rend your hearts No. 4 (Aria): If with all your hearts Pablo Tarazaga, assistant professor in the Department No. 5 (Chorus): Yet doth the Lord No. 6 (Recitative): Elijah, get thee hence of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech, gives us a No. 7 (Double Quartet): For He shall give His angels behind-the-scenes look at the spiral lift system beneath Recitative: Now Cherith’s brook No. 8 (Recitative and Aria): What have I to do with thee the stage at the Moss Arts Center. No. 9 (Chorus): Blessed are the men who fear Him No. 10 (Recitative and Chorus): As God the Lord of Sabaoth No. 11 (Chorus): Baal, we cry to thee No. 12 (Recitative and Chorus): Call him louder! No. 13 (Recitative and Chorus): Call him louder! No. 14 (Aria): Draw near, all ye people No. 15 (Chorus): Cast thy burden upon the Lord No. 16 (Recitative and Chorus): O Thou, who makest Thine angels spirits & The fire descends No. 17 (Aria): Is not His word like a fire Recitative: O man of God No. 18 (Arioso): Woe unto them who forsake Him! No. 19 (Recitative and Chorus): O man of God, help thy people! Recitative: Thou hast overthrown thine enemies! No. 20 (Chorus): Thanks be to God The Blacksburg Master Chorale is sponsored in part by Moog Components Group. http://bit.ly/18MG2uH This project is supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts Program Notes (continued) Program Notes (continued) Mendelssohn fortunately provided a counterweight to Schubring’s preachy design by On the large scale, the oratorio is patterned after powerful contrasts and internal echoes. actively collaborating in shaping the text, emphasizing the importance of its dramatic shape The collective despair depicted in the opening is set against a moving scene in which we as well as the integrity of the original story. He composed the work to the German of see the widow’s individual suffering, with the revival of her child inspiring a restoration of Luther’s translation of the Bible—Elias, the German counterpart of “Elijah” (taken from the faith. (For the part of the widow, Mendelssohn originally wrote with the voice of the famous Hellenized version of the Hebrew “Eliyahu”)—but then had it meticulously translated into soprano Jenny Lind—the “Swedish nightingale”—in mind.) the English of the King James Bible for the first performance (the version we hear sung in The individual angle, of course, comes most clearly into focus in Mendelssohn’s multi-faceted these performances). portrayal of the prophet himself. In contrast to the upright confidence, even bravado, of As a result, Elijah avoids the traditional device of an interlinking narrator in favor of a Part One—notice the Handel-flavored attitude ofIs Not His Word Like a Fire?—Part Two more directly dramatic approach, leaving the connections between its colorful scenes focuses on Elijah’s inner life, culminating in the dark night of It Is Enough (patterned after implicit. Schubring and Mendelssohn interspersed passages from other sources in Hebrew a famous aria from Bach’s St. John Passion). Mendelssohn then builds a kind of spiritual Scripture, arranging these around the dramatic arc of Elijah’s career. The singers actually crescendo from this point of utter dejection to the sacred epiphany of Behold! God the adopt the roles of specific characters, at times “playing” more than one. The bass soloist Lord Passeth By! At the opposite end of the gloom-ridden, somber music that opened the is Elijah, while the alto, for example, represents both an angel and the idol-mongering oratorio, Elijah reaches a securely serene conclusion in D major with the chorus And Then Queen Jezebel; the chorus embodies the Israelites as well as the priests of Baal (Jezebel’s Shall Your Light Break Forth. imported deities) but also comments on the miracles of divine intervention. In the process, Mendelssohn gives monumental form to his spiritual and artistic Mendelssohn treats his musical predecessors with deep respect; in a sense, they represent preoccupations. No wonder that the eloquence of such arias as O Rest in the Lord or the his artistic prophets. St. Paul, with its prominent chorales and fugal textures, is clearly Bach serenely reassuring double-quartet For He Shall Give His Angles Charge Over Thee spoke centered, while Elijah adheres more closely to the dramatic model established by Handel. so consolingly to the Victorian era, in which science and relentless material “progress” were At the same time, the score shows awareness of Bach, and its treatment of the miracles unraveling old certainties. Yet however distant from our own sensibilities the reactions of that punctuate the story indicates an obvious familiarity with the imaginative tone painting those original audiences seem, Mendelssohn’s achievement – so far-reaching in scope – Haydn used so remarkably in his own groundbreaking oratorios from his late period (The retains its immediacy and power to move us. Creation and The Seasons). The clichéd image of Mendelssohn as merely a “conservative” Elijah is scored for solo soprano, alto, tenor, and bass; mixed chorus; and an orchestra composer, however, reads these homages to earlier masters too simply—and tends to blunt of two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three our appreciation of the genuinely innovative touches in this music. trombones, timpani, organ, and strings. The composer clearly expressed his own view of the power inherent within the prophet’s story: “I imagined Elijah as a grand, mighty prophet, of the kind we might require in our own Elijah’s Narrative day,” he wrote while the idea was still percolating. “Energetic and zealous, but also stern, angry, brooding,” he continued, “in striking contrast to the rabble you find both in court and The story of Elijah unfolds as a sequence of events structured to build two distinct climaxes, in the populace—indeed, up against the whole world—yet borne aloft on angels’ wings.” one for each half of the bipartite oratorio. Part One begins as Elijah prophesies a devastating drought as punishment for the people’s acceptance of idols. The prophet then goes into hiding in the desert and revives the lifeless son of a widow who has sheltered him. Three What to listen for years later, he returns to King Ahab and stages a showdown between the Baal worshippers Elijah opens with a remarkably dramatic gesture: an austerely scored brief prologue in and “the Lord God of Abraham.” The first part reaches its climax when Elijah’s prayer for which the prophet predicts the doom to come. Only after this plunge into a story already in the return of life-restoring rain is answered. progress does Mendelssohn provide an Overture—here a tone poem depicting the people’s Part Two finds the prophet again confronting the ruling powers as Queen Jezebel rouses suffering, which spills directly into the opening chorus. The Prologue also introduces two the people against him. He flees once more to the wilderness and faces abject despair key musical ideas that will recur: a rising triad (here in D minor) signifying the divinity and but, in another powerful climax, is granted a vision of the Lord. Elijah continues to fulfill his a sinister descending figure to indicate the curse brought on by the Israelites’ inconstancy. mission and finally ascends to heaven in a chariot of fire. The concluding numbers suggest The score abounds in marvelous pictorial opportunities drawing on large-scale orchestral parallels between Elijah and the future Messiah. and choral forces. Examples include the descent of fire in the contest of the gods, the onrush of water at the conclusion of Part One, and the whirlwind of fire in Elijah’s ascent to heaven. Mendelssohn heightens their impact with his effective use of suspense, as in the savage silences after the frenzied invocations to Baal or the patient but slightly anxious repetitions when the prophet sends the boy to scout for rain. Program Notes (continued) Mendelssohn’s Contribution to Oratorio Text Mendelssohn’s approach to oratorio reveals him both as a preserver of tradition and as a PART I creative artist. The word “oratorio” comes from the Italian for a hall of prayer, and the genre Introduction: As God the Lord originated in Italy around the same time as opera. Like opera, oratorio is a form of musical- Elijah dramatic narrative – but (usually) without costumes and scenery and traditionally recounting As God the Lord of Israel liveth, before whom I stand: There shall not be dew nor rain these stories drawn from biblical sources. The earliest examples of oratorio from the 17th century years, but according to my word. were actually rather modest chamber dramas with a religious function and were intended Overture to foster meditation. 1. Chorus: Help, Lord! In his adopted home of England, Handel pioneered a thoroughly secular variant of the The People genre – basically a substitute for the pricier proposition of staged opera, which had fallen Help, Lord! Wilt Thou quite destroy us? out of fashion in London. Messiah was in fact introduced in a secular context. The popularity The harvest now is over, the summer days are gone, of Elijah anointed Mendelssohn as the true successor to the Handelian tradition in the eyes And yet no power cometh to help us! of his contemporaries and among later generations in the English-speaking world above all.