Mendelssohn, Schumann, and the Oratorio

_Paulus_ was Mendelssohn's most successful work during his lifetime, establishing him as a German, Romantic, and Christian composer following in the footsteps of the "great masters." Yet critics were sharply divided over Mendelssohn's lyrical approach. My reconstruction of the 1836 premiere with Cantus Domus in Berlin for an April 2020 performance--made possible by my discovery of the premiere's choral parts--has raised further questions about Mendelssohn's compositional choices, since the _Urfassung_ seems far more gripping. Based on reviews, letters, and my comparative analysis, this paper posits that Mendelssohn deliberately opened himself up to criticism, realizing the need to offer a composition that would stand in stark contrast to "fashionable" works. In the process, Mendelssohn seems to have written himself into the oratorio, self-identifying with Paul, as his own personality had found expression in his revised portrayal of Paul.


Contemporaneous reviews present a complex cultural landscape. _Paulus_ is hailed by _Elegante Welt_, _Musical Times_ , and _NZfM_ as an epoch-defining work that represents the best of German, Christian culture, while three reviews in the _Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung_ criticize Mendelssohn's lyrical approach, the use of chorales, and his reliance on Bach. Yet all reviews recognize the importance of _Paulus_ for the future of modern music. In correspondences about _Paulus_ Mendelssohn frequently shared his concerns about the prevalent "Philistine" culture of empty virtuosity, cheap entertainment, and disregard of history. Based on his firm belief that reforms are enacted by musicians rather than critics, Mendelssohn used _Paulus_ to share his strongly held aesthetic beliefs.


Tracing the revisions from premiere to print uncovers a seeming paradox: Mendelssohn heightened the unfolding dramatic narrative with clearer delineations of scenes, yet Paul's role as assertive protagonist is diminished in favor of an introspective representation of events. Paul's far less righteous indignation in the printed version as the recipient of heathen worship further deflects the attention away from the messenger: no self-gratifying display, clear focus on the truth, and an acknowledgment of past teaching. Having discovered a congruent message and messenger in Paul's ministry as "Heidenapostel," Mendelssohn had also found himself artistically in his role as "Philisterapostel."

Unlike well-behaved Victorian children, Mendelssohn's oratorio _Elijah_ – a steadfast favorite in British concert halls from its rapturous 1846 Birmingham premiere onwards – was increasingly both heard and seen, enjoying a steady stream of UK staged performances. Up until the Second World War, touring professional troupes performed dramatized versions of the oratorio to great acclaim. Amateur companies also mounted Elijah's commodious chariot, attempting to supplement what was fast becoming their standard diet of Gilbert and Sullivan with something more serious and supposedly uplifting. 


But there were striking musical differences between amateur and professional performances that went well beyond expense and expertise. The former substituted size and enthusiasm for agility and precision – a 1930s Sheffield performance featured a chorus of over 500 voices – while the latter sometimes relied on an almost Baroque ensemble of around 25 instrumentalists and 30 singers. Extensive cuts were common in both types of production, which nevertheless did not preclude the inclusion of additional material borrowed from Mendelssohn's most popular piano and orchestral pieces, as well as from his unfinished opera _Die Lorelei_. 


Based on a host of primary sources that have hitherto lain largely undisturbed in local archives, this paper chronicles and contextualizes the hidden history of _Elijah_ on the British stage.  It concludes that although dramatized oratorios may have been condemned by some historians as a sideline in musical history – a tastelessly inept practice that can only result in leaden choral operas, or pointlessly active oratorios, it would seem that performers, and indeed audiences, mostly begged to differ.

When an admirer wrote to Robert Schumann in 1851 encouraging the composer to attempt an oratorio on a sacred subject, Schumann responded with the declaration, "To turn one's energies toward sacred music surely remains the highest goal of the artist." During the final years of his productive career, Schumann increasingly turned to composing choral works with religious texts and subjects, culminating in his _Missa Sacra,_ Op. 147, and _Requiem,_ Op. 148, both written in early 1852 without any commission or explicit occasion. Schumann's pivot towards sacred music was interpreted by his earliest biographers as a harbinger of his eventual institutionalization-a trope that continues to influence even some recent scholarship. In this paper I seek to complicate this narrative, asking two key questions: what drew Schumann to the composition of sacred music in the 1850s? And what might these works reveal about the changing role of religion in the society in which he composed? 


To address these questions, this paper focuses on a work that never actually came to fruition, but which Schumann spent two years intermittently planning: an oratorio based on the life of the sixteenth-century reformer Martin Luther. The plans for this unrealized oratorio, preserved in letters between Schumann and his librettist Richard Pohl, as well as a series of planning documents held at the Robert-Schumann-Haus in Zwickau, give valuable insight into what drew both composer and librettist to this subject. Analyzing these sources, I argue that the plans for the Luther oratorio offer a prime example of what Alexander Rehding has called "historical monumentality," characterized by the harnessing and fashioning of historical figures into symbols of collective political, religious, and social identity. In this sense, Schumann's interest in Martin Luther exemplifies the complex interweaving of historicism, confessional legacy, political revolution, and emergent nationalism that guided his compositional efforts during his Düsseldorf years (1850-1854). More broadly, this paper seeks to contribute to recent reinterpretations of Schumann's later works not as symptomatic of the composer's supposed creative withdrawal, but rather as evidence of active engagement with religious and political debates in the years following the 1848 revolutions.