Other notes - Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was an enormously talented and versatile composer, conductor and performer. He was the grandson of the famous Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, who strongly promoted Jewish assimilation into German culture and society. Mendelssohn’s father converted the family to the Lutheran faith when Felix was a young boy, adopting the additional surname Bartholdy, which was the name of a family estate.

Surprisingly little attention has been paid to Mendelssohn’s smaller sacred works, on texts associated with the Anglican, Catholic and Lutheran traditions. They include a series of choral cantatas, inspired equally by Mendelssohn’s admiration for the music of Bach (whose St Matthew Passion he famously revived in Berlin in 1829 at the age of 20!) and by his love of Martin Luther’s hymns. The Weihnachtslied or ‘Christmas song’ on Luther’s Christmas Eve hymn Vom Himmel hoch was written in the winter of 1830/31 during an extended stay in Rome. However, there is no record of a performance there or anywhere else in the composer’s lifetime, and the score remained unpublished until 1985.

The cantata is a setting of seven verses chosen from the fifteen of Luther’s hymn. The first two verses are combined in the opening chorus, which as in many of Bach’s cantatas is the longest and most imposing movement of the work. It begins with an orchestral introduction in which brilliant string figuration suggests the angel descending with the Christmas message; the hymn melody makes its first appearance in a contrapuntal treatment of its first line at "Euch ist ein Kindlein heut geborn," and is stated in full at the very end of the movement. The third verse is set as a gentle baritone aria, and the fourth in a plain, but subtly re-harmonized, statement of the chorale. The following soprano aria has a uniquely delicate accompaniment of flutes, clarinets, two-part violas and two-part cellos. The baritone is accompanied by strings in an Arioso that leads, with a sudden harmonic shift, into the closing chorus on Luther’s last verse. This restates the chorale, surrounded by jubilant figuration, until it reaches the last line – at which point the textures open out towards an emphatic conclusion.

Mendelssohn deliberately chose Bach as his model for sacred cantatas, and this music clearly shows Bach’s influence in such things as the prominence of the hymn tune, which appears in all three choral movements, the wonderful bass counterpoint which accompanies the baritone solos, and the use of long vocal pedals.  Remarking on this influence, Mendelssohn wrote:  “If there is a resemblance to Bach, I can’t help that, because I have written as I felt the need to, and if the words have led to an association with old Bach, so much the better.”

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