Page 172 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

170

IN CONTEXT
THE LAST NOTE FOCUS

19th-century sacred
WAS DROWNED … choral music

BEFORE
1741 Handel composes his
IN A UNANIMOUS oratorio, Messiah.

1829 Felix Mendelssohn
VOLLEY OF PLAUDITS conducts Bach’s St. Matthew
Passion for the first time since

ELIJAH (1846), FELIX MENDELSSOHN the composer’s death in 1750.
AFTER
1857 The Handel Festival at
the Crystal Palace in London
includes a performance of
Messiah with a choir of 2,000
people and an orchestra of
500, creating a vogue for very
large choral performances
in England.

1900 Edward Elgar composes
The Dream of Gerontius—a
setting of an 1866 poem by
Cardinal Newman—for the
Birmingham Music Festival.

horal music had started
to wane in popularity by
C the 19th century. The
Classical period had heralded a
new philosophy that deemed
music to be at its purest when it
was self-contained and referenced
nothing outside itself. Instrumental
music—especially the symphony—
had become the most important
genre. While church musicians kept
the choral tradition alive to some
extent, they were increasingly
amateurs. Secular choirs began to
flourish, but because they were not
professional musicians, the prestige
of choral music suffered, compared
to other types of music. In the
absence of a market for choral

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