Term 3 Concert December 2004

Mendelssohn's "Elijah" December 11, 2004

For the third concert in our Great Hall Series for 2004, the Choir will be performing Mendelssohn's magnificent oratorio, Elijah, on Saturday, 11 December at 8.00 pm.

As with the very successful Messiah in December 2003, this will be a special concert, with a guest chorus in which members of the public will have the opportunity to take part in 12 of Mendelssohn's great choruses. Christopher Bowen will direct this major event, involving a large orchestra and group of soloists.

Many critics consider Mendelssohn's Oratorio "Elijah" to be his greatest work. It was given its first performance on 26 August 1846 at the Birmingham Festival, conducted by Mendelssohn himself. The work was received with rapturous applause as described in The Times: "The last note of Elijah was drowned in a long-continued unanimous volley of plaudits, vociferous and deafening... Never was there a more complete triumph - never a more thorough and speedy recognition of a great work of art." "Elijah" was a subject that Mendelssohn has long wanted to set to music and he greatly enjoyed the work's success before his untimely death the following year aged only 38.

Though his English contemporaries bracketed 'Elijah' with Handel's 'Messiah', in fact the parallels are stronger with the more dramatic Handelian oratorios which were less in favour in the Victorian period. Mendelssohn was concerned to treat a subject which gave him a strongly dramatic story. His libretto, using only text from the Bible, is not a continuous narrative. Using a technique which Handel used in some of his dramatic oratorios, Mendelssohn presents a series of vivid scenes whilst presuming on the listener's knowledge of the Biblical original. This avoids acres of explanatory recitative and provides Mendelssohn with some dramatic juxtaposition of scenes. He was originally attracted to the subject because of the rain miracle. The text provides him with some superb set pieces.