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BBC Proms - 17 July - 12 September 2009 - The World's Greatest Classical Music Festival
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What's On / Programme Notes
Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47)
Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 52
‘Lobgesang’ (1840)
1 Sinfonia
I Maestoso con moto – Allegro – Maestoso con moto come I –
II Allegretto un poco agitato –
III Adagio relizioso
2 Chorus ‘Alles, was Odem hat, lobe den Herrn!’ –
Soprano ‘Lobe den Herrn, mein Seele
3 Tenor (recitative and solo) ‘Saget es, die ihr erlöset seid durch den Herrn – ‘Er zählet unsre Tränen’
4 Chorus ‘Sagt es, die ihr erlöset seid’ –
5 Soprano, Mezzo-soprano ‘Ich harrete des Herrn und er neigte sich zu mir’
– Chorus ‘Wohl dem, der Seine Hoffnung setzt auf den Herrn’
6 Tenor ‘Stricke des Todes hatten uns umfangen
7 Chorus ‘Die Nacht ist vergangen’
8 Chorus ‘Nun danket alle Gott’ –
9 Tenor, soprano ‘Drum sing’ ich mit meinem Liede’
10 Chorus ‘Ihr Völker! bringet her dem Herrn Ehre und Macht!’
I Maestoso con moto – Allegro – Maestoso con moto come I –
II Allegretto un poco agitato –
III Adagio relizioso
2 Chorus ‘Alles, was Odem hat, lobe den Herrn!’ –
Soprano ‘Lobe den Herrn, mein Seele
3 Tenor (recitative and solo) ‘Saget es, die ihr erlöset seid durch den Herrn – ‘Er zählet unsre Tränen’
4 Chorus ‘Sagt es, die ihr erlöset seid’ –
5 Soprano, Mezzo-soprano ‘Ich harrete des Herrn und er neigte sich zu mir’
– Chorus ‘Wohl dem, der Seine Hoffnung setzt auf den Herrn’
6 Tenor ‘Stricke des Todes hatten uns umfangen
7 Chorus ‘Die Nacht ist vergangen’
8 Chorus ‘Nun danket alle Gott’ –
9 Tenor, soprano ‘Drum sing’ ich mit meinem Liede’
10 Chorus ‘Ihr Völker! bringet her dem Herrn Ehre und Macht!’
This ‘symphony-cantata’, as
Mendelssohn described it, was among his own favourite works. He
composed it as part of the celebrations held all over Germany
in 1840 to mark the 400th anniversary of the invention of
movable-type printing by Johannes Gutenberg (c1398–1468).
Although the exact nature of Gutenberg’s invention, let
alone its date and place, are still unclear, it was naturally
considered a great landmark in Germany’s contribution to
the spread of knowledge and culture. The city of Leipzig, where
Mendelssohn had been conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra
since 1835, was a major publishing centre and decided to erect
a statue to Gutenberg and hold a festive concert.
Mendelssohn composed two works for these
celebrations. One was a ‘Festgesang’ for male
chorus and wind band played in the open air at the unveiling of
the statue. This otherwise forgotten work, referred to in the
Mendelssohn family as his ‘Market music’, is the
source of the hymn ‘Hark, the herald angels sing’.
His second, and far more substantial contribution, was the
‘Lobgesang’ (Hymn of Praise) Symphony, which he
conducted on 25 June in the Church of St Thomas.
Shortly afterwards, Mendelssohn was
invited to the Birmingham Festival, where he gave the first
British performance of the ‘Hymn of Praise’, as it
became known in English. It was a great success, the audience
rising to its feet during the final chorus, an honour usually
reserved for Handel’s ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus. On
returning to Germany, Mendelssohn gave two further
performances. The second of these, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on
3 December, incorporated some revisions to the orchestral
movements and additions to the vocal section, including the
tenor recitative and arioso (No. 3), the tenor solo (No. 6) and
the tenor/soprano duet (No. 9).
There are some indications that during the
previous year Mendelssohn had been considering a purely
orchestral symphony, but we do not know whether this was the
basis for the orchestral movements of the
‘Lobgesang’. All the same, he was certainly content
to class the work with his symphonies, rather than with his
cantatas or oratorios. The numbering of Mendelssohn’s
symphonies is confusing, and reflects their order of
publication, not composition. Thus, after No. 1 in C minor
(1824) came the ‘Reformation’ (1830) and the
‘Italian’ (1833), published posthumously as Nos. 5
and 4 respectively. The ‘Lobgesang’ was followed by
the ‘Scottish’, conceived in 1829 but not performed
until 1842 and published as No. 3.
‘First the instruments praise in
their own way, and then the chorus and the individual
voices,’ explained Mendelssohn to a friend after the
Leipzig premiere. The three symphonic movements, which are
played without a break, are carefully designed to lead up to
the vocal part of the work. At the opening, three trombones in
unison announce a march-like theme which pervades the first
movement and which will later be set to the words ‘Alles
was Odem hat, lobe den Herrn’ (All that hath breath,
praise the Lord). The second movement, beginning as an elegant,
lightly scored intermezzo, incorporates a solemn chorale for
the full wind section, while an accompaniment figure from the
substantial slow movement opens the cantata section, where it
is combined with the trombone theme to provide the crescendo
that prepares for the entry of chorus and organ.
Much 19th-century religious music,
particularly Mendelssohn’s, has suffered from charges of
complacency, but this rather undervalues the composer’s
historical and religious position, which could be summed up as
tradition in the service of progress. He was the grandson of
the eminent Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, whose
commentaries and translations of the Bible into elegant German
prose, as well as his advocacy of general freedom of
conscience, made him a notable Enlightenment figure. When
Moses’ son Abraham had his four children baptised in 1816
(the future composer was seven years old), he was not denying
their religious or racial background, but wanted to place these
in the context of a self-consciously German, thoroughly modern
culture that stressed the values of tolerance and reason.
Despite the occasion of its composition,
the texts of the ‘Lobgesang’ make no mention of
Gutenberg, books or printing, but stress this general idea of
enlightenment. Mendelssohn chose the words from the Bible (the
Psalms, the Book of Isaiah and two Epistles of St Paul) with
the addition of the 17th-century chorale ‘Nun danket alle
Gott’ (Now thank we all our God), and headed his score
with a quotation from Martin Luther: ‘I would happily see
all the arts, especially Music, in the service of Him who has
given and created them.’
Any symphony with a vocal finale invites
comparison with Beethoven’s Ninth, and Mendelssohn was
very careful to avoid anything that might suggest he was
attempting to follow that unique work. The proportions alone of
the ‘Lobgesang’ make it quite different, the three
orchestral movements comprising little more than half of the
whole, and the cantata section (which has sometimes been
performed separately) having none of the character of a
symphonic finale. The closest parallel to the vocal part of the
‘Lobgesang is not Beethoven at all, but the church
cantatas of J. S. Bach, which Mendelssohn (unlike most of his
contemporaries) knew well. The division into chorus,
recitative, aria and duet is very Bach-like, and so is the
elaborate chorale setting (No. 8). It is perhaps no coincidence
that the ‘Lobgesang’ was intended to be performed
in the church where Bach had been Kantor 100 years before.
Programme note © Andrew Huth
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| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
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| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
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| 30 | 31 | |||||
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