Supported by the Friends of Hereford Cathedral

Festival Chorus
Philharmonia Orchestra
Geraint Bowen conductor

Sarah Fox soprano
Catherine Wyn-Rogers mezzo-soprano
Nicholas Mulroy tenor
Matthew Brook bass-baritone

Mendelssohn Elijah

Mendelssohn himself conducted the first performance of Elijah in Birmingham in 1846. It was such a success that no fewer than four choruses and four arias were encored. He wrote ‘no work of mine went so admirably the first time of execution, or was received with such enthusiasm by both the musicians and the audience.’ The music correspondent of The Times was even more effusive. ‘The last note of Elijah was drowned in a long-continued unanimous volley of plaudits, vociferous and deafening,’ he reported. ‘Mendelssohn … descended from his position on the conductor’s rostrum; but he was compelled to appear again, amidst renewed cheers and huzzas. Never was there a more complete triumph; never a more thorough and speedy recognition of a great work of art.’

This piece was composed in the spirit of Mendelssohn’s Baroque predecessors Bach and Handel, whose music he loved; however the style clearly reflects, in its lyricism and use of orchestral and choral colour, Mendelssohn’s own genius as an early Romantic composer. Mendelssohn originally composed the work to a German text, but upon being commissioned by the Birmingham Festival to write an oratorio, he had the libretto translated into English, and the oratorio was premiered in the English version.