Mendelssohn: A Life in Music

by Todd, R. Larry

  Ex. 10.11 : Mendelssohn, Paulus , Op. 36 (1836), No. 6

  Each part of St. Paul subdivides into three dramatic segments: in Part 1, the martyrdom of Stephen (Nos. 4–9), Saul on the road to Damascus (Nos. 10–16), and the restoration of his sight and baptism in Damascus (Nos. 17–22); in Part 2, the commissioning of Paul and his preaching with Barnabas among the Jews (Nos. 23–29), Paul and Barnabas among the Gentiles (Nos. 30–36), and Paul’s departure from the Ephesians (Nos. 37–45). An initial complex including the first chorus and chorale Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr (Nos. 2–3) introduces us to the early Christian community and, like the “opening prayers of a religious service, in which the audience is a congregation,” 166 enhances the sermonizing quality of the whole. The story of Stephen unfolds principally through a series of recitatives, divided between a soprano narrator and a tenor part for the martyr and accompanied by the orchestra. Although the use of the testo derives from Bach’s Passions, not infrequently the recitatives take on a modern, songlike quality, as in Stephen’s plea, “Lord! Lay not this sin to their charge.” The chorus now becomes the turba in a series of increasingly dissonant responses to Stephen’s vigorous defense. Interrupting the drama is the first aria, No. 7, for soprano (“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Thou that killest the prophets”), which links the stoning of Stephen to Christ’s prophetic words in Matthew 23:37. Here Felix departs from baroque models to produce a meditative Lied that became a staple of Victorian parlor-room music making. Its gently percussive triplets adumbrate the militant figure of the following turba chorus , “Stone him to death.”

  The second section presents Saul of Tarsus as a zealous persecutor of the Christians in the “rage” aria No. 12, “Consume them all, Lord Sabaoth,” on texts from the Psalms. The emotional and spiritual high point of the oratorio follows in No. 14—Saul’s blinding revelation on the road to Damascus. Introduced by a tenor recitative, a female chorus delivers Christ’s words (“Saul! Why persecut’st thou me?”) in a scoring that cost Felix considerable effort and controversy. Schubring informs us that Felix rejected the idea of employing a “very powerful bass voice” and instead originally intended the passage for a soprano solo. When Schubring countered with the idea of a four-part mixed chorus, Felix responded, “Yes, and the worthy theologians would cut me up nicely for wishing to deny and supplant Him who arose from the dead.” 167 Whether or not Felix also considered Louis Spohr’s preference, a strong male choir to convey the shattering impact of Christ’s intervention, 168 is unknown. Felix’s solution, a four-part female chorus, prompted criticism from G. W. Fink, who “wanted the vox humana to be omitted entirely, and only indefinite sounds of the trombone heard.” 169 Accompanied by softly repeated chords in the brass and high winds, the result produces a strikingly ethereal, otherworldly effect as the divine message descends from on high.

  Having fallen to the earth, Saul now “rises” as an orchestral crescendo emanating from the bass register ushers in the majestic chorus “Rise! Up! Arise!” (No. 15, Isaiah 60), and the chorale Wachet auf reappears (No. 16). In the third section of Part 1 the blind Saul, having journeyed to Damascus, encounters Ananias, sent by an angel to restore his sight (No. 19; the music recalls Christ’s appearance in No. 14). Saul sings two contemplative arias on Psalm texts. No. 18 (“O God, have mercy”), in B minor, forms a pendant to his earlier rage aria, while No. 20 (“I praise thee, O Lord my God”) is a hymn of praise that prompts the choral response “The Lord, He is good.” A dramatic recitative (No. 21) relates the laying on of hands by Ananias, the restoration of Saul’s sight, and his baptism. The majestic chorus “O great is the depth” (No. 22) ponders the unfathomable divine mysteries as Part 1 concludes.

  Part 2 commences with a large-scale chorus on verses from Revelation. The idea of spiritual discovery, and the purpose of Paul’s missionary work, is conveyed through the celebratory fugue “For all the Gentiles come before Thee, and shall worship Thy name.” Its subject ( ex. 10.12 ) revives the centuries-old psalm formula used by Mozart in the Jupiter Symphony, and is thus one more example of Felix’s efforts to tether his oratorio firmly to historical tradition. Paul and Barnabas as ambassadors of Christ is the subject of two, pastoral-like numbers in G major, the duet No. 25 and chorus No. 26. Counterbalancing them are the two dissonant turba choruses, Nos. 28 and 29, in which the Jews reject their proselytizing efforts.

  In the central portion of Part 2 Paul announces his intention to preach to the Gentiles. The duet No. 31 (“For so hath the Lord Himself commanded, behold, I have made thee a light to the Gentiles”) revives the “Jupiter” motive of the opening fugue, before the dramatic action resumes in No. 32, as Paul heals the lame man of Lystra. There follows a group of three numbers (33–35), into which Felix insinuated the “most delicate fragrance of classical Hellenism.” 170 The Gentiles now offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas as Mercury and Jupiter, and in No. 35 sing a disarmingly naive chorus; presumably Felix crafted its unidentified text (“O be gracious ye Immortals! Heed our sacrifice with favor!”), not drawn from the Bible. Rending his garments, Paul rejects the false idols, for “God dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” At this point the chorus responds with the fugue “But our God abideth in Heaven” (No. 36), the climax of which is the appearance of the Lutheran chorale Wir glauben all’ . Here the sophisticated counterpoint and dense textures seem calculated to revive something of the grandeur and complexity of the opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion.

  Ex. 10.12 : Mendelssohn, Paulus , Op. 36 (1836), No. 23

  The concluding section of the oratorio begins with the assault of the Jews and Gentiles upon the apostles. The last turba chorus (No. 38) literally recalls music from No. 8 and thus completes Paul’s spiritual trajectory from a persecutor of the Christians to a persecuted Christian. In the final numbers the dramatic element recedes more and more into the background in favor of deliberative music that reflects on his life’s work. Thus, Felix carries the account of Paul in Acts only to his departure from Ephesus and omits his return to Jerusalem, imprisonment and transfer to Caesarea, and final journey to Rome. Instead, Paul’s imminent journey is compared to Christ’s return to Jerusalem and crucifixion. A pensive, sparsely scored chorus (No. 42) cites Peter’s response in St. Matthew after Christ predicts the Crucifixion: “Far be it from thy path! These things shall not be unto thee!” The final recitative (No. 44) brings closure with the well-known verses from Paul’s second epistle to Timothy, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith,” and leads directly to the concluding chorus (No. 45), which crowns the oratorio with a brisk fugue of praise to the Lord (Psalm 103).

  Scholars have debated whether Felix intended St. Paul as concert music, “imaginary” or, indeed, in some sense “real” church music, thereby reversing the historical progression by which the baroque oratorio had left the oratory of the church for the concert hall. 171 Certainly the incorporation of familiar Protestant chorales and devotional, prayerlike arias (regarded by later critics as overly sentimental) contribute to a pervading mystique of Christian piety. Among Felix’s articles of musical faith was his father’s notion that “every room in which Sebastian Bach is sung is transformed into a church.” 172 By using Bachian models in St. Paul , and, indeed, by linking Stephen and Paul to Christ’s words in St. Matthew, Felix probably viewed his oratorio as a modern rumination about Bach’s immortal Passion. St. Paul , the work that launched Felix as a truly international celebrity, also dispatched his deeply felt sense of filial obligation to his father. Abraham’s agendum of assimilation was now triumphantly achieved, or so it seemed, in a major oratorio whose subject matter treated symbolically his family’s spiritual journey. The apostle’s voice thus resonated on several levels—to a German Restoration public intent upon discovering nationalist, cultural symbols, to a German Protestant community reaffirming its religious roots, and to a twenty-eight-year-old composer tapping into the wellspring of Protestant music and seeking his own spiritual growth.

>   Part III

  Elijah’s Chariot

  Chapter 11

  1837–1839

  Musical Biedermeier

  “After all, I prefer the German Philistine, with his nightcap and tobacco.” 1

  Palm Sunday 1837 (March 19) found Felix returning with Elisabeth and Cécile to Frankfurt, little more than a week before the wedding. In the expiring days of his bachelorhood, he nervously awaited the delivery of documents, including a certification he was “unusable” (unbrauchbar ) for the Prussian military service. On the 23rd papers finally arrived from Konrad Schleinitz in Leipzig attesting Felix was neither a vagabond nor already married. 2 Five days later, several flower-festooned barouches arrived at the French Reformed Church. Chains were drawn across the Allée to restrain curious onlookers. Inside the sanctuary, the Frankfurt elite witnessed Auguste Jeanrenaud’s successor, Pastor Paul Joseph Appia, perform the wedding ceremony in French at 11:00 A.M. and preach a sermon on Psalm 92: “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High; to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night, upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.”

  Declaring Felix and Cécile’s marriage “an unceasing song in praise of the Lord” (une continuelle louange à la gloire du Seigneur ), Appia acknowledged their lives were “destined to be untroubled by the material needs and interests which govern those of most men and women.” Art would embellish their union, Felix would use his genius to “influence beneficially” Cécile’s soul, and Cécile, stirred by memories of her father and grandfather, would adopt the “incorruptible purity of a tranquil and gentle heart which is of great value in the eyes of God.” 3 The music included an organ work by Felix, perhaps the processional envisioned for Fanny’s 1829 wedding. Then the carriages returned to the Fahrtor for a reception and dinner in a grand room overlooking the Main. To greet the newlyweds, Ferdinand Hiller composed a festive wedding song. At 5:30 P.M . Felix and Cécile departed for Mainz on their honeymoon in a new blue and brown carriage.

  Most of these details come from Le mariage de Mendelssohn , published in 1937 by a descendant of the Souchays, Jacques Petitpierre, to mark the event’s centenary. We cannot confirm his entire, euphoric account; although a transcript of Appia’s sermon is preserved, 4 none of Felix’s surviving letters describes the ceremony. The only Mendelssohn to represent Felix seems to have been Dorothea Schlegel; no immediate family member attended. We might read much into his mother’s and siblings’ absence, although the reasons are not difficult to ascertain. Lea was still in ill health and could not make the journey, Paul was acquiring a bank in Hamburg, 5 and Rebecka and Fanny were pregnant (late in March, Fanny would suffer her second miscarriage). 6

  In Mainz, where more than a thousand years before Boniface had consolidated the conversion of Germanic tribes to Christianity, Felix and Cécile spent their wedding night at the Rheinischer Hof, an elegant hotel with a balcony overlooking the Rhine. Their accommodations were considerably less satisfactory at Worms, site of Luther’s defense of his teachings at the Diet of 1521. The inclement weather, too, did not cooperate, but in their wedding diary Cécile recorded there was “one agreeable thing which I will refrain from mentioning!” 7 Farther up the Rhine, at Speyer, they climbed to the gallery of the Romanesque cathedral. She sketched the Heidenturm, last remnant of the town’s medieval wall, while Felix turned to organ music. He tried out an instrument, probably at the Protestant Trinity Church, which Cécile dismissed as a “wretched box of whistles,” 8 and between April 2 and 6 quickly drafted three preludes. After pairing them with earlier fugues in the same keys, 9 he later dedicated the collection in 1837 to Thomas Attwood as the Drei Praeludien und Fugen Op. 37—the first significant contribution to the organ repertoire since its steep decline after the monuments of J. S. Bach.

  Like its counterpart for piano (Op. 35), Op. 37 offers in part an uncompromising return to the German baroque and its rigorous counterpoint. Thus the first prelude, with its undisturbed pedal points and gentle trochaic rhythms, suggests a pastoral, while the second fugue, animated with leaps and in compound meter, exudes the character of a baroque gigue and revives the Thomascantor’s favored association of that dance with erudite counterpoint. The subject of the third fugue, with its distinctive pause and expressive ascending ninth, traces its parentage to the antepenultimate fugue of the Well-Tempered Clavier , Book I ( ex. 11.1a, b ). Still, as in Op. 35 and St. Paul , fidelity to baroque models informs only part of Op. 37, in which Felix juxtaposed Bachian traits with modern expression. Thus, songlike elements permeate the second prelude, and the improvisatory characters of the first and third evince a certain formal freedom. The third prelude, regulated by distinct rhythmic shifts from eighth notes to triplets and sixteenths, reveals cadenza-like passages that anticipate the first movement of his second piano concerto, Op. 40 in D minor, begun during his honeymoon. The Bachian third fugue also recalls the fugal subject of Beethoven’s final piano sonata, Op. 111 ( ex. 11.1c ), though its energetic anacrusis has fallen by the wayside, leaving a subject more subdued and reflective.

  Ex. 11.1a: Mendelssohn, Fugue in D minor, Op. 37 No. 3 (1833)

  Ex. 11.1b: J. S. Bach, Fugue in B ♭ minor, Well-Tempered Clavier I (1722)

  Ex. 11.1c: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in C minor, Op. 111 (1822)

  In Strasbourg, where the newlyweds arrived on April 8 after crossing the French border, Felix explored the magnificent Gothic Minster, with its lacelike, open tower penetrated by the blue sky. The organ (1713–1716) was an imposing instrument, with three manuals, thirty-nine stops, and thirty-two-foot pipes, the culminating opus of the Alsatian builder Andreas Silbermann. In the unheated sanctuary Felix played with “blue hands” and “chattering teeth.” 10 The wedding diary contains his new impressions of Abraham’s favorite country, and the culinary “charmes ” of Strasbourg—roquefort, potage à la Julienne, and omelette soufflée. Within a few days, Felix and Cécile recrossed the border and reached Freiburg im Breisgau.

  Here, on the edge of the romantic Black Forest, they paused for three weeks. In the surrounding countryside they visited an old Carthusian monastery, the paper mills built along the waters of the Dreisam, and the dramatic scenery of the Höllenthal (Valley of Hell), with its precipitous rock walls punctuated by waterfalls. To alleviate Elisabeth Jeanrenaud’s fear that the exertion was too great for Cécile, the newlyweds wrote pacifying letters; Felix assured Elisabeth “there is no trace of illness or weakness in her entire being.” 11 The lovers had their first quarrel when Felix flirted with a peasant woman; he apologized by playing Cécile’s favorite piano pieces and gathered for her bouquets of violets. His floral offering inspired an affectionate Allegretto in A major for piano, a symbol of domestic consonance, with the soprano and tenor voices singing together in harmony. 12 Around this time, Felix accepted an invitation to direct the Birmingham Musical Festival in September, and in anticipation he began to teach Cécile English. 13

  The honeymoon diary, published in a meticulously documented edition by Peter Ward Jones, chronicles not only these domestic affairs but also Felix’s ability to envision several compositions simultaneously. Thus in April he sketched a string quartet (Op. 44 No. 2, in E minor) and the opening chorus of Psalm 42 (Op. 42), and gathered ideas for a new piano concerto for Birmingham. He also put the finishing touches on the third installment of his Lieder ohne Worte , Op. 38, forwarded to Simrock on April 25. 14 As with Opp. 19b and 30, Felix culled together the new volume from separately composed Lieder, at least four of which were in place before the honeymoon. He finished the final piece, No. 5 in A minor, in Speyer on April 5. 15 Emphasizing again the feminine, domestic quality of the opus, Felix dedicated it to a daughter of Otto von Woringen, Rosa. (At least three Lieder were originally gifts for women: No. 2, for the soprano Henriette Grabau; 16 No. 3, for Clara Wieck; and No. 6, the “duet” for Cécile, in which, as Schumann noted, a pair of lovers co
nversed “softly, intimately, and trustfully.”) 17

  Though Felix titled only the sixth Lied (Duetto ), Julius Schubring did not hesitate to speculate about the extramusical meanings of other pieces. In particular, he ascribed to the fourth, part-songlike Lied in A major a certain “comfortableness” (Behaglichkeit ) and imagined it originated after Felix’s wedding as an expression of marital contentment (Felix disabused his friend by revealing that the piece preceded his engagement). 18 As for the duet, Schubring observed tongue in cheek that the woman had the final say in the closing bars but then modified his opinion—her closing phrase was rather an echo of the masculine motive, to which she ultimately deferred. Another piece that might have aroused Schubring’s extramusical musings, No. 5, exceeded his abilities as a pianist. It stands out for its compound meter , agitated syncopations, insistent repeated pitches, and dramatic crescendi and pedal points. It has, in short, all the markings of a narrative-like ballade, 19 with its text suppressed. Felix owned a copy of the Première Ballade in G minor of his friend Chopin (Op. 23), the first composer to apply the term to a piano composition; indeed, when that work appeared in 1836, G. W. Fink labeled it a Ballade ohne Worte . 20 But Op. 38 No. 5 impresses more as a response to Schubert’s texted ballade Erlkönig . The static, reiterated pitches, rising bass figures, and opening motive recurring like a refrain throughout the composition ( ex. 11.2 a, b ) conjure up the nocturnal ride in Schubert’s masterpiece, performed by Felix with Henriette Grabau on March 6, only a month before he composed the Lied ohne Worte .