Student ID No.

51335603


Word Count: 1557
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It may be said the Mendelssohns oratorios set the benchmark for the 19
th
century choral
music in general. Discuss this statement with particular reference to Elijah.
Few works by Felix Mendelssohn have reflected the composers shifting critical reception as
compellingly as the oratorio Elijah.
1
Hailed, after its English premieres in 1846 and 1847, as
a seminal masterpiece,
2
Elijah remained a popular cornerstone in the oratorio repertoire and
a so called benchmark for the 19
th
century choral music genre. Although Elijah remained
popular it was not immune to assault with later musicians claiming that Mendelssohns
craftsmanship was not as polished and impeccable as once thought. The idea was proposed
that his music was somehow not consonant with the newer directions in musical culture.
Elijah is said to be one of the pinnacles of Felix Mendelssohns career and is said to be one
of the most famous nineteenth century oratorios. Elijah itself was a later work for
Mendelssohn and was completed in 1846, just a year before the composers untimely death.
As he had done with his previous oratorio St. Paul, Mendelssohn requested a pastor to assist
him in preparing the text, Elijah its self is fashioned from the Old Testament text largely from
the first book of Kings based around significant events in the life of the Biblical prophet
Elijah. Elijah was first performed in Birmingham in 1846 and it was after this performance
that a critic in the Times stated unabashedly:
Never was there a more complete triumph... never a more thorough and speedy
recognition of a great work of art.
Whilst this is high praise indeed it was somewhat in agreement within the English speaking
realms that Elijah was indeed Mendelssohns principle masterpiece and indeed emblematic
of Mendelssohnism. Also, when the revised version of the oratorio, on which Mendelssohn
laboured intensively for a number of months, was performed in Exeter Hall, London, in April
1847, the scrupulous music critic Henry Fothergill Chorley went so far as to claim that:
Elijah is not only the sacred work of our time, we dare fearlessly to assert, but it is a
work for our children and for our childrens children
3

However, with the English embracing Elijah so wholly, with some stating it stood only
behind Handels Messiah in popularity, what are in fact the beginnings of Elijah and why
was it such a success?

1
R.Larry Todd, The Library of Congress [Website],
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/moldenhauer/2428139.pdf (Authored 2000, Accessed 17th April
2014).
2
R.Larry Todd, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/moldenhauer/2428139.pdf
3
Werner Jack, Mendelssohn's "Elijah" (London, 1965), p. 16.


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Prior to writing Elijah, in 1836 Mendelssohn had just finished writing his oratorio St. Paul,
which again is regarded as some of his finest work. St.Paul was written in 1834 for the
Lower Rhine Music Festival in Dsseldorf in 1836, premiering on May 22
nd
. The hymns
found in Victorian oratorios stem mainly from Mendelssohns use of chorales in St. Paul,
and to a lesser extent in Elijah which only includes a single chorale.
4
However, it is curious
that the powerful impact that Mendelssohn had on the English oratorio came only after the
premiere of Elijah, in 1846.
5
There is a ten year gap between St. Paul and Elijah and in
that space there was very little imitation of Mendelssohnian procedures in oratorio. It was
after the exceptional reception of Elijah, however, that English composers began to
increasingly draw inspiration from both of Mendelssohns oratorios.
Elijah was to be born soon after the premiere of St. Paul with Mendelssohn wanting to
compose another oratorio based upon the Biblical story of Elijah. This was partially due to
him having organised and conducted the first performance of Bachs St. Matthew Passion
since Bachs death in 1829. The abbreviated and modified version of the oratorio was
performed in Berlin to great acclaim and served to further Mendelssohns career as a young
twenty year old man; it would also inspire some of his work.
Mendelssohns revival of the St. Matthew Passion brought the music of Bach, in particular
the larger scale works, to the attention of the public as well as scholarly attention that
continued into the present era. This may have contributed to the way in which Mendelssohns
lifelong love of Handel and Bach through a historicism which is now blended subtly with the
composers mature style.
The influence o J.S. Bach on the music of the English oratorio is not easy to distinguish, for it
is mixed with that of Mendelssohn. It was instead partially the outcome of St. Paul which
was performed in 1836 in Liverpool and in 1837 at the Birmingham Festival. Subsequently,
Mendelssohn had exposed English audiences (and composers) to certain aspects of Bachs
Passions long before they were performed in England thus influencing the English oratorios
which would follow.
6

The earliest evidence of the term choral among the English oratorios is to be found in George
Elveys Resurrection (1838). Elvey wrote his oratorio in the wake of the St. Paul
performances in England and his oratorio illustrates multiple uses of the designation corale,
or all corale, which were mostly used for hymns set in a simple, chordal style. This stands as
evidence that Mendelssohn exuded a large influence on the composers that were to follow
him and indeed set the benchmark for 19
th
century choral music. Another historicist element
that the English oratorio has in common with its German counterpart, and is new to the
oratorios of both nations in this period, is the a cappella ensemble and chorus. A cappella

4
Smither Howard, A History of the Oratorio: The Oratorio in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (North
Carolina, 1977,) p.173.
5
Ibid., p.171.
6
Ibid., p.320.


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settings become frequent in English oratorios only after the appearance in Mendelssohns
works.
7
In Elijah Mendelssohns trio of Angels watching over Elijah proved to be
particularly influential. It was settings such as this which may well reflect both the influence
of the German oratorio and the English revival of sixteenth-century music thus also proving
Mendelssohns influence.
On the other hand, although it would seem that Mendelssohn did indeed set the benchmark
for 19
th
century choral music in general; he was not without his critics.
The second half of the nineteenth century was witness to a reaction to the composer and to
Elijah itself. While Mendelssohns work had previously been seen as the benchmark for
choral music and Mendelssohn himself being a prime mover in the nineteenth century Bach
revival;
8
his thorough assimilation of Bachs style into his own music nevertheless left him
susceptible to criticism. Mendelssohn was charged with relying too heavily on historical
models and therefore was lacking in originality. It was also claimed that his work, especially
music such as Elijah, was stylistically derivative and yet again wanting in originality.
9
In
1855, Franz Liszt asserted that the historical oratorio had become had become: more or less
effete, an antiquated genre, and although he did not specifically mention Elijah, it was
certain that he had Mendelssohns oratorio in mind.
10
Liszt was not alone in his criticism with
Hector Berlioz noting in his memoirs that Mendelssohn was: a little too fond of the dead.
11

It would seem that whilst Mendelssohn did influence some composers, such as the previously
mention Elvey, his influence was not felt by all composers and on the contrary led to their
criticism.
However, the comments made my Liszt and Berlioz were nothing compared to the onslaught
of criticism that Richard Wagner provided. in 1850 Richard Wagner gave voice to a more
insidious type of criticism by unleashing an anti-Semitic attack on Mendelssohn in the
anonymously published article Das Judenthum in der Musik. In the 1880s, George Bernard
Shaw also criticised Mendelssohn for his: kid glove gentility, his conventional
sentimentality, and his despicable oratorio mongering. Shaw particularly objected to the
dreary fugue manufacture and Sunday school sentimentalities which he believed works
such as Elijah and its earlier companion St. Paul encapsulated.
Nevertheless, throughout all the shifting tides of the history of Mendelssohns reception,
Elijah has remained an incontrovertibly popular work.
12
Although Mendelssohns oratorios,

7
Smither, A History of the Oratorio: The Oratorio in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, p.321.
8
R.Larry Todd, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/moldenhauer/2428139.pdf
9
Botstein Leon, The Aesthetics of Assimilation and Affirmination: Reconstructing the Career of Felix
Mendelssohn (Princeton, 1991), p.6.
10
Liszt Franz, Robert Schumann: Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik, (Place not stated, 1855).
11
Berlioz Hector, The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz, in David Cairns (ed.), (New York, 1975), pp.290-294, at
p.294.
12
R.Larry Todd, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/moldenhauer/2428139.pdf



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in particular Elijah, did influence composers of the nineteenth century and ultimately set a
benchmark for choral music to an extent, he was not without his critics in the second half of
the nineteenth century. Perhaps this was due to music constantly changing and evolving and
certain trends and ideas were constantly going in and out of fashion. Yet despite Elijah and
Mendelssohn himself facing many critics who on occasion questioned Mendelssohns merit
as a composer, Elijah will continue to occupy a central position within choral music in
general.








Bibliography
R.Larry Todd, The Library of Congress [Website],
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/moldenhauer/2428139.pdf (Authored
2000, Accessed 17
th
April 2014).
Smither,Howard A History of the Oratorio: The Oratorio in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries (North Carolina, 1977,).
Berlioz Hector, The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz, in David Cairns (ed.), (New York,
1975), pp.290-294.
Liszt, Franz. Robert Schumann: Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik, (Place not stated, 1855).

Werner, Jack. Mendelssohn's "Elijah" (London, 1965).