Music for January 24, 2016 + The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• How Lovely Are the Messengers – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
• Love Ye the Lord (Ombra Mai Fu, Largo from Xerxes) – G.F. Handel (1685-1759), Kenne McKee, Soprano

Instrumental Music

• Sonata II: I. Grave/Adagio – Felix Mendelssohn
• Sonata II: II. Allegro Maestoso e vivace – Felix Mendelssohn

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 493 - O for a thousand tongues to sing (Azmon)
• Hymn 533 - How wondrous and great thy works, God of praise! (Lyons)
• Hymn 632 - O Christ, the Word Incarnate (Munich)
• Hymn 321 - My God, thy table now is spread (Rockingham)
• Hymn 711 - Seek ye first the kingdom of God (Seek Ye First)
• Hymn 539 - O Zion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling (Tidings)

Felix Mendelssohn was a brilliant pianist and organist, a fine string player and an inspirational conductor, but it is for his compositions that he is remembered today. He began composing early, too; by the time he was seventeen Mendelssohn had composed twelve string symphonies, his first symphony for full orchestra, a String Octet, and the wonderful overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

By the time he was 22, he was commissioned to write his first oratorio. He chose the great New Testament figure, St. Paul, probably because it offered tremendous dramatic possibilities.

Given Mendelssohn’s high regard for the choral masterpieces of Bach, Handel and Haydn, it is no surprise to find that St Paul is modelled on similar lines, with an integrated scheme of recitatives, arias and choruses. His use of chorales to demarcate important points in the story and to reflect on the action is clearly influenced by the Passion music of Bach. (When he was still only twenty, Mendelssohn conducted the first public performance of the St. Matthew Passion since Bach’s death.) Handel’s influence is also evident in the dramatic use of the chorus, which at times is central to the action, as for instance when the outraged mob calls for Paul to be killed, whilst at other times it provides appropriate commentary on the unfolding events. Of course, the work is full of Mendelssohn’s own innovations, the most striking of which is his use of a four-part chorus of women’s voices – used only once in the whole piece – to represent the voice from heaven, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’.

Today the choir will sing one of the oratorio’s best-loved choruses, How lovely are the messengers, which refers to Paul and Barnabas as ambassadors of the Christian Church. It is written in much the same form as Handel would have used, with each section of the choir introducing the main theme in a contrapuntal setting.

And speaking of Mendelssohn, the presentation hymn is a German chorale that was harmonized by Felix Mendelssohn himself. In fact, he used this chorale (the tune, not the text) in his other famous oratorio, Elijah. There is much less movement in the harmonic voices and the harmonization sounds much more 19th-century than a chorale harmonized by Bach. If Bach had arranged it, the basses would be singing at least twice as many notes.

The aria that one of our choral interns, Kenne McKee, will sing at communion is not from an oratorio of Handel, but from one of his many operas, Xerxes. The secular Italian text has been replaced by Richard Row with this text made suitable for church.