Organization

Singer

Soprano

Helen May

The Widow

Contralto

Marta Fontanals-Simmons

An Angel

Tenor

Anthony Flaum

Obadjah

Bass-baritone

Jack Lawrence-Jones

Elijah

Conductor

Márcio da Silva

Orchestra

Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra

Others

Hastings Philharmonic Choir

Chor Münchweier

Cantemus! Gundelfingen

Visiting Choirs from Freiburg (Germany)

200 Voices Mendelssohn Elijah Combined Choirs From ​hastings and Freiburg, Germany

Bexhill

United Kingdom

De La Warr Pavilion

200 VOICES  MENDELSSOHN Elijah  Combined choirs from ​Hastings and Freiburg, Germany: Elias Mendelssohn

Public

Approved

HPO are delighted to be uniting local choirs with visiting choirs from Freiburg, Germany to share in an impressive performance of Mendelssohn's dramatic and inspiring oratorio Elijah. Visiting choirs include Chor Münchweier, Cantemus! Gundelfingen and school choirs from Ettenheim.

Hailed as the Messiah of its day, this glorious work was a hugely popular and cemented Mendelssohn's position as one of the greatest composers of sacred music. 

A review published in The Times shortly afterwards was unstinting in its praise: ‘The last note of Elijah was drowned in a long-continued unanimous volley of plaudits, vociferous and deafening ... never was there a more complete triumph; never a more thorough and speedy recognition of a great work of art.’

Felix Mendelssohn was born into a wealthy, cultured Jewish family during a troubled period in European history when Jews were seeking after equal civil rights. His grandfather Moses was one of Europe’s most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment, and his father, Abraham, was a successful banker. Moses changed the family name from Mendel Dessau to Mendelssohn. Felix’s parents added Bartholdy to the family name, converted to Protestantism, and had their four children baptized. Although Felix became a committed Lutheran, he refused to adopt Bartholdy as a surname.

As youngsters, both Felix and his sister Fanny were sent to Paris to study piano and the works of Mozart and Bach. Musicians of the day praised the precociously gifted Felix as the second Mozart. During Felix’s teens, he was already composing mature works, including 12 string symphonies, a symphony for full orchestra, and the overture A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

After completing his studies at Berlin University, Mendelssohn travelled and performed all over Europe. He became a favourite composer and friend of Queen Victoria and Prince Consort Albert. When he was 26, he became conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. His concert seasons were unmatched in Europe, both in musical quality and repertoire. When he conducted the first performance of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion since the composer’s death 79 years earlier, he rescued Bach from obscurity.

Mendelssohn and his contemporaries faced the early 19th-century challenge of appealing to the rising middle class, who were a much more diverse audience than music’s formerly small, homogeneous, upper-class audience. Mendelssohn and his colleagues committed themselves to creating programme music, in which the instrumentation conveys the meaning of words and, ultimately expresses what words cannot.

Mendelssohn used two musical forms — the chorale and large instrumental works with chorale-like finales — to advance themes of reconciliation and brotherhood. His selection of Biblical texts for his two great oratorios, St. Paul and Elijah, exemplify his devotion to the task.

English

200 Voices Mendelssohn Elijah Combined Choirs From hastings and Freiburg, Germany by Mendelssohn, Alkaen (2023/2023), Musiikinjohto Márcio da Silva, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, United Kingdom

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200 Voices Mendelssohn Elijah Combined Choirs From ​hastings and Freiburg, Germany by Mendelssohn, Alkaen (2023/2023), Musiikinjohto Márcio da Silva, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, United Kingdom