Matériel :
Come Let Us Sing Psalm 95 Tonic Solfa
SKU: BR.SON-442
ISBN 9790004803509. 10 x 12.5 inches.
This volume contains three reworkings and orchestrations of religious works by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy which were originally set for smaller ensembles (solo voices, four-part chorus and organ). They were composed at different times and for different occasions, two of them as commissions. The anthem ,,Why, o Lord, delay forever MWV A 19 was originally the sacred vocal piece MWV B 33, published in England in 1841 with the additional title ,,[…] The Thirteenth Psalm, and in Germany in the same year as ,,Lass, o Herr, mich Hilfe finden with the title ,,Drei geistliche Lieder which was composed at the suggestion of the English literature and music lover Charles B. Broadley who also provided the paraphrase of the psalm text. After Mendelssohn had refused an initial request by Broadley to furnish the anthem post festum with an organ prelude, the composer did not want to turn down a second request to orchestrate the work and he even expanded the existing material with a lengthy closing fugue involving additional trumpets and timpani. The ,,Ave Maria MWV B 19 was written in connection with Mendelssohn's appointment as municipal music director, a position which at the same time included the responsibility for the musical organization of church services. The instrumentation of the work with an accompaniment of two clarinets and two bassoons as well as low strings was due to the fact that the organ in Dusseldorf's principal church St. Lambertus was out of order for an extended period of time, and Mendelssohn considered this solution explicitly only as a surrogate for the organ should there be none. A further psalm paraphrase in English, this time by William Bartholomew, of the hymn ,,Hear my prayer MWV B 49 was set to music in early 1844; the orchestration of the organ part commissioned by the distinguished Dublin musician Joseph Robinson was not completed until 1847 so that the premiere finally only took place after Mendelssohn's death. In the further course of the century ,,Hear my prayer would, particularly in the version with organ accompaniment, come to enjoy great popularity in Great Britain and Ireland.
SKU: BR.SON-427
ISBN 9790004803080. 10 x 12.5 inches.
Based on the conviction that all material authored by its composer belongs to the musical work as such and therefore needs to be published, this volume collects all surviving drafts that Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy made for his magnum opus, the oratorio Elijah op. 70. It not only incorporates preliminary studies and sketches that by no means always take a direct route to a specific version of the work, but also those passages that were eliminated from already completed texts and that are of special analytical interest. Due to Mendelssohn's way of working and the particular circumstances of source transmission at the end of his life a considerable number of later discarded movements as well as revised versions have come down to us. All these sources provide us with detailed information both about the composer's work method and about the genesis of the composition in question. The volume prepared by the editor-in-chief of the Mendelssohn complete edition contains all known autograph sources with annotation referring to the genesis of Elijah, as well as other surviving, as yet unspecified related material. The wealth of documents, compiled and arranged in an exemplary fashion and presented in an unconventional scholarly format, is reproduced in all its complexity while at the same time enabling users in a highly illustrative way to trace details of Mendelssohn's modus operandi. The edition of sketches and drafts, revised and discarded settings of Elijah hereby constitutes a remarkable example of a creative approach to the object of research that nevertheless strictly adheres to the historical facts.Awarded the German Music Edition Prize 2023.
