Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809 –
1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was
a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of
the early romantic period. Mendelssohn wrote
symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano music and
chamber music. His best-known works include his
Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's
Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the
overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and
his String Octet. His Songs With...(+)
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809 –
1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was
a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of
the early romantic period. Mendelssohn wrote
symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano music and
chamber music. His best-known works include his
Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's
Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the
overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and
his String Octet. His Songs Without Words are his most
famous solo piano compositions. After a long period of
relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and
antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
his creative originality has been re-evaluated. He is
now among the most popular composers of the romantic
era.
Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany, and
revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach,
notably with his performance of the St Matthew Passion
in 1829. He became well received in his travels
throughout Europe as a composer, conductor and soloist;
his ten visits to Britain – during which many of his
major works were premiered – form an important part
of his adult career. His essentially conservative
musical tastes set him apart from more adventurous
musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard
Wagner, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Hector Berlioz. The
Leipzig Conservatoire, which he founded, became a
bastion of this anti-radical outlook.
Sacred music retained a position of major significance
throughout Felix Mendelssohn's career as a composer,
beginning with sacred choral songs performed at the
Berlin Singakademie in 1821 and concluding with the
Three Motets (Opus 69) completed in the summer of 1847.
Intended for both church and concert hall, his sacred
works in particular have spawned divergent threads of
discussion including the detection of underlying Jewish
influences in the music or text selection or evaluating
the composer's success in integrating a musical
composition with autonomous artistic claims into a
functional liturgical work. Polemics aside, during his
lifetime Felix was undoubtedly a highly acclaimed
composer of sacred music and his accomplishments in
this genre are extraordinary: two completed oratorios
of lasting popularity, over two dozen large sacred
works, psalm settings and cantatas, and as many shorter
pieces including motets and anthems. Notably, this
oeuvre shows a remarkable flexibility as he produced
settings of Latin texts from the Roman Catholic
liturgy, German settings suitable for use in Lutheran
Germany, and English canticle settings written
specifically for Anglican Evensong. Transparent in his
sacred works is a veneration of J.S. Bach, especially
of his chorale cantatas and Passion, as well as a
powerful debt to G.F. Handel's oratorios and
anthems.
The two men's choir pieces, Op. 115, were commissioned
in 1837 by Johann Christian August Clarus (1774-1854),
physician in Leipzig and since 1836 rector of the
University of Leipzig. He ordered the works for the
annual ceremony to commemorate the medical professor
Dr. Christian Martin Koch (1752-1803). The premiere
took place on February 12, 1837, with the participation
of 12 Thomaner (members of St. Thomas Choir).
Source: CPDL
(https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Felix_Mendelssohn)
.
Although originally composed for Chorus (SATB), I
created this Interpretation of "2 Geistliche Chöre" (2
Sacred Choruses: 'Beati mortui' & 'Periti autem' Op.
115 Nos. 1 & 2) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).
SHEET MUSIC