Festgesang

SKU: BR.SON-452

ISBN 9790004803622. 10 x 12.5 inches.

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy lived in the heyday of men's choruses. Early on, the composer had encountered the genre by way of his teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter and his Berlin Liedertafel, founded in 1809, had then gathered his own experience from the Leipzig Liedertafel societies, and was in contact with a number of male choral societies throughout his lifetime. Nevertheless, his relation to male choral singing was characterised not only by his inclination, but also by critical distance. The festive compositions for male chorus and orchestra forming the content of this volume are all commissioned works, two of which, the so-called Gutenberg-Kantate and the Festgesang an die Kunstler on a text by Friedrich Schiller, also appeared in print during Mendelssohn's lifetime.