Page 173 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 171

See also: Magnus Liber organi 28–31 ■ Canticum Canticorum 46–51 ■
Monteverdi’s Vespers 64–69 ■ St. Matthew Passion 98–105

Oratorios, such as Elijah, were
regularly performed with huge choirs
and crowd-drawing soloists at the
Crystal Palace, London, and elsewhere
in England during the Victorian era.

professional conductor and defray
concert expenses. It started as an
educational venture for wealthy
ladies, then went on to include men
in 1791, and thereafter gave regular Felix Mendelssohn
concerts. It was here that the young
Felix Mendelssohn, whose father Born into a wealthy German-
was a member of the choir, first Jewish family in 1809, the
came across the works of J.S. Bach young Mendelssohn was a
and was inspired to conduct a child prodigy. He excelled
performance of the St. Matthew not only at the piano, violin,
Passion, which helped to establish conducting, and composition
the Bach revival in Germany. but also at painting, fencing,
Further choral societies sprang up and riding. At the age of 20,
throughout Europe and America, he conducted a performance
and publishing choral music of the St. Matthew Passion—
sacred music, there was also little became a lucrative concern, as the first since Bach’s death.
Mendelssohn’s visit to
incentive for composers to write some choirs needed in excess of England in 1829 was well
new choral works. As a result, the 300 copies of a vocal score for a received and made a great
choral music performed tended to single performance. impression on him, resulting
draw on works from the past. It was almost certainly through in nine further extended trips
attending performances of Handel’s and invitations to Buckingham
An appetite for oratorios oratorios in London in the 1790s Palace. As well as composing
In England, regular renditions that Haydn was inspired to create and performing, Mendelssohn
of Handel’s oratorios in the late a similar work in the Classical style. conducted the Leipzig
1700s marked the start of a trend The Creation, based on the Book of Gewandhaus Orchestra and
that continued through the 19th Genesis, was published in 1800, also founded the Leipzig
century. Among the first works and curiously in a bilingual edition Conservatoire. Following
to be revived after the composer’s in both German and English— ill-health, possibly due to
death, they were often updated probably because Haydn had an overwork and the death of
for large, grandiose performances. eye on the British market, in which his beloved sister, he suffered
At later music events, such as the he was very successful. The Creation a series of strokes and died in
1847, at the age of 38.
Three Choirs Festival (instituted was an instant success and was
by the cathedrals of Hereford, performed throughout the Western
Worcester, and Gloucester), world in Haydn’s lifetime. Even as Other key works
choirs could number more than his other music dropped out of the
a thousand singers—a far cry from standard repertoire, this oratorio 1826 Overture “A Midsummer
the composer’s original intentions. remained one of the core works Night’s Dream,” Op. 21
1833 Symphony No. 4 in
The Berlin Singakademie was for choral societies and festivals. A major (“Italian”), Op. 90
one of the first choral societies to be It was within this cultural 1844 Violin Concerto in
established, with amateurs paying climate that Mendelssohn E minor, Op. 64
a regular subscription to engage a composed his oratorio St. Paul in ❯❯

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