Elijah(oratorio)

Elijah(German:Elias),Op.70,MWVA 25, is anoratoriobyFelix Mendelssohndepicting events in the life of the ProphetElijahas told in the books1 Kingsand2 Kingsof theOld Testament. It premiered in 1846 at theBirmingham Festival.

Music and its style
This piece was composed in the spirit of Mendelssohn'sBaroquepredecessorsBachandHandel, whose music he loved. In 1829 Mendelssohn had organized the first performance of Bach'sSt Matthew Passionsince the composer's death and was instrumental in bringing this and other Bach works to widespread popularity. By contrast, Handel's oratorios never went out of fashion in England. Mendelssohn prepared a scholarly edition of some of Handel's oratorios for publication in London.Elijahis modelled on the oratorios of these two Baroque masters; however, in its lyricism and use of orchestral and choral colour the style clearly reflects Mendelssohn's own genius as an earlyRomanticcomposer.[citation needed]
The work is scored for eight vocal soloists (two each of bass, tenor, alto, soprano), full symphony orchestra includingtrombones,ophicleide,organ, and a large chorus usually singing in four, but occasionally eight parts. The title role was sung at the premiere by the Austrian bassJosef Staudigl.[1]
Mendelssohn had discussed an oratorio based on Elijah in the late 1830s with his friend Karl Klingemann, who had provided him with the libretto for his comic operettaDie Heimkehr aus der Fremde,[2]which resulted in a partial text that Klingemann was unable to finish. Mendelssohn then turned toJulius Schubring[de], the librettist for his earlier oratorioSt. Paul, who quickly abandoned Klingemann's work and produced his own text that combined the story of Elijah as told in the Book of Kings withpsalms. In 1845, theBirmingham Festivalcommissioned an oratorio from Mendelssohn, who worked with Schubring to put the text in final form and in 1845 and 1846 composed his oratorio to the German and English texts in parallel, taking care to change musical phrases to suit the rhythms and stresses of the translation byWilliam Bartholomew, a chemist who was also an experienced amateur poet and composer.[3]
The oratorio was first performed on 26 August 1846 at Birmingham Town Hall in its English version, conducted by the composer, and it was immediately acclaimed a classic of the genre. AsThe Timescritic wrote: 'Never was there a more complete triumph– never a more thorough and speedy recognition of a great work of art'.[4]Notwithstanding the work's triumph, Mendelssohn revised his oratorio wholesale before another group of performances in London in April 1847– one (23 April) in the presence ofQueen VictoriaandPrince Albert. The German version was first performed on the composer's birthday, 3 February 1848, inLeipzig, a few months after Mendelssohn's death, under the baton of the composerNiels Wilhelm Gade.

摘自:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_(oratorio)