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14 results

Mendelssohn and the Genesis of the Protestant A Cappella Movement

Mendelssohn and the Genesis of the Protestant A Cappella Movement
  • Siegwart Reichwald
  • Published online:
    10 October 2023
    Print publication:
    09 November 2023
  • Drawing on his experiences in Berlin under Schleiermacher and his travels to the Vatican, Mendelssohn, as the Director of Prussian Church Music, wanted to offer an edifying worship experience where large-scale choral works would become an indispensable part of the liturgy, which he saw as a performative or representational act, centered around the life of Christ. Yet he quickly realized that the court and clergy were not interested in his foundational concepts; they merely wanted reforms based on the restauration ideals espoused by Winterfeld and Thibaut. Analyses of his 25 Domchor compositions and their revisions in this Element chronicle Mendelssohn's stylistic development and his ability to continue to offer a Christological worship experience within strictly prescribed parameters. The Berlin Domchor and its new repertoire by Mendelssohn and contemporaneous composers quickly became the model for the emerging a cappella movement throughout Protestant Germany.

Mendelssohn, the Organ, and the Music of the Past
  • Constructing Historical Legacies
  • With contributions by Jürgen Thym , Celia Applegate , John Michael Cooper , Hans Davidsson , Wm. A. Little , Peter Mercer-Taylor , Siegwart Reichwald , Glenn Stanley , Russell Stinson , Benedict Taylor , Nicholas Thistlewaite , R. Larry Todd and Christoph Wolff
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    14 March 2018
    Print publication:
    15 November 2014
  • By upbringing, family connections, and education, Felix Mendelssohn was ideally positioned to contribute to the historical legacies of the German people, who in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars discovered that they were a nation with a distinct culture. The number of cultural icons of German nationalism that Mendelssohn "discovered," promoted, or was asked to promote (by way of commissions) in his compositions is striking: Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press, Dürer and Nuremberg, Luther and the Augsburg Confession as the manifesto of Protestantism, Bach and the St. Matthew Passion, Beethoven and his claims to universal brotherhood. The essays in this volume investigate Mendelssohn's relationship to the music of the past from a variety of perspectives, including the pervasive presence of Bach's music within the larger Mendelssohn family, the influence of Beethoven in the Reformation Symphony, and Mendelssohn's compositions for organ and his relationship to English organs in particular. Together, they shed light on the construction of legacies that, in some cases, served to assert German cultural supremacy only two decades after the composer's death. Contributors: Celia Applegate, John Michael Cooper, Hans Davidsson, Wm. A. Little, Peter Mercer-Taylor, Siegwart Reichwald, Glenn Stanley, Russell Stinson, Benedict Taylor, Nicholas Thistlewaite, Jürgen Thym, R. Larry Todd, Christoph Wolff. Jürgen Thym is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music and editor of Of Poetry and Song: Approaches to the Nineteenth-Century Lied (University of Rochester Press, 2010).

  • 2 - Mendelssohn and the Catholic Tradition: Roman Influences on His Kirchen-Musik, Op. 23 and Drei Motetten, Op. 39

  • from Part One - Composition and Tradition
  • With contributions by Jürgen Thym , Celia Applegate , John Michael Cooper , Hans Davidsson , Wm. A. Little , Peter Mercer-Taylor , Siegwart Reichwald , Glenn Stanley , Russell Stinson , Benedict Taylor , Nicholas Thistlewaite , R. Larry Todd and Christoph Wolff
  • Book:
    Mendelssohn, the Organ, and the Music of the Past
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    14 March 2018
    Print publication:
    15 November 2014, pp 40-60

  • Summary

    “Mendelssohn is one of those open characters you don't often find; he believes firmly in his Lutheran religion, and several times I've seriously shocked him laughing at the Bible.”1 Berlioz seems to have stated the obvious about Mendelssohn's Lutheran faith. From his performance of the St. Matthew Passion and his countless remarks about the greatness of Bach's music to Mendelssohn's many chorale settings and Bach's obvious influence on St. Paul (MWV A14, op. 36), it seems a foregone conclusion that Mendelssohn was a Lutheran composer. Things are, however, never as simple as they seem. Consider, for example, that Mendelssohn's first published sacred works are his opus 23 (MWV B19–21), a diverse collection that includes an Ave Maria; in his second publication are three Latin motets (MWV B23, B24, and B30, op. 39), dedicated to the nuns at Trinità dei Monti. His first published large-scale sacred work is Psalm 115 “Non nobis Domine”/”Nicht unserm Namen, Herr” (MWV A9, op. 31), a work conceived in Latin and only later translated into German. At the end of his career, when Mendelssohn worked on Elijah (MWV A25, op. 70), he composed concurrently his largest Catholic composition, Lauda Sion (MWV A24).

    A look at works published during Mendelssohn's lifetime presents an even more surprising picture. Mendelssohn decided to publish only nine (ten in England) of his sixty smaller sacred works: Kirchen-Musik für Chor, op. 23 (1832); Drei Motetten für weibliche Stimmen mit Begleitung der Orgel, op. 39 (MWV B24, B30, B23, 1838); and Drei Motetten, op. 69, consisting of Jubilate (MWV B58), joined by a Te Deum for the Morning Service (MWV B25, 1847), and Magnificat et Nunc dimittis (MWV B59–60, 1847). Of the nine published smaller works, seven have Latin texts and six are intricately connected to his Italian experience. Underscoring the importance of his Grand Tour of 1829–31 is Mendelssohn's decision not to publish any of his eighteen smaller choral works composed before this trip to Italy, thereby making his “Italian” opuses 23 and 39 the only public offerings of sacred motets for almost his entire career— until the publication of his opus 69 motets in 1847, composed initially for the Anglican Church.