Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809–1847): Paulus, oratorio for soloists, choir and orchestra, Op. 36, excerpts Nos. 11–15 (On the Way to Damascus) (1836)

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

born 3 February 1809 in Hamburg
died 4 November 1847 in Leipzig

Premiere:
Pentecost 1836 in Düsseldorf under Mendelssohn's direction

                  From the 1836 manuscript: Saul, why are you persecuting me?

In the 1830s, a large number of oratorios were composed in Germany: Louis Spohr composed ‘Die letzten Dinge’ (The Last Things, 1826) and ‘Des Heilands letzte Stunden’ (The Saviour's Last Hours, 1835), Friedrich Schneider composed ‘Das Weltgericht’ (The Last Judgement, 1820), ‘Das befreite Jerusalem’ (1835) and Carl Loewe ‘Die Zerstörung Jerusalems’ (1829). It was a time when many choral societies were formed and a bourgeois musical culture developed within a restorative political landscape of princes.

Felix Mendelssohn was the son of an assimilated Jewish family. He was baptised Lutheran in a home baptism together with his three siblings in 1816 and was deliberately raised as a Christian by his father Abraham, who took the surname Bartholdy after converting to Protestantism. He and his sister Fanny developed remarkable musical talent at an early age, and both created their first significant compositions. The Sunday morning house concerts in the Mendelssohns' dining room in Berlin were famous. His teacher Carl Zelter introduced Felix Mendelssohn to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach at an early age.

Commissioned by the Berlin Cäcilien-Verein, Felix Mendelssohn set about composing an oratorio based on the life of the Apostle Paul at the age of 23. He discussed the content and structure with friends, in particular with the theologian Julius Schubring. Finally, his father Abraham urged Felix to complete this oratorio Paulus soon, before his death. Despite Felix's efforts to fulfil his father's wish, it was not enough. His father died before he could do so.
The oratorio, which was finally premiered in Düsseldorf in 1936, focuses on scenes from the Acts of the Apostles that depict Paul's journey and conversion from a law-abiding persecutor of Christian communities to the Apostle to the Gentiles. Mendelssohn also saw his own journey from Jew to baptised Christian reflected in Paul. Musically, Mendelssohn's interest in Handel and Bach is evident. He attempted to combine the old style and its musical elements (choruses, chorales, fugues, recitatives, arias) with the early Romantic and Classical tendencies of music after Mozart and Beethoven.

From today's perspective, the treatment of Judaism in this oratorio is rather clichéd and perhaps typical of a convert, as Paul's aria ‘Destroy them, Lord of Hosts’ shows. This makes the musical and theological originality of the scene depicting the irruption of transcendence all the more astonishing. The voice of the risen Christ is sung by a female choir. At first, Mendelssohn wanted only a soprano to sing for Jesus (a kind of feminist theology in the making, where the role of Christ is also taken on by women, contrary to official Catholic objections!). Friends suggested to Mendelssohn, from a conventional point of view, a bass voice for the risen Christ. The compromise for Mendelssohn was ultimately a female choir, which is also inspiring for today's post-mythical, enlightened theological understanding. One must imagine Paul's conversion process as an inner spiritual transformation that took several years. Even the Acts of the Apostles speaks of three years and of Paul's blindness. The growing realisation must have come as a shock that it was precisely his and his contemporaries' religious zeal for the law that blinded them to the truth and even led to the elimination and murder of the righteous chosen by God. Time and again, it is supposed ‘practical constraints’ that blind people and destroy precious lives, as one might put it in secular terms today, thinking of technology, climate destruction and economic liberalism blinded by poverty. The cross remains a warning sign. The warning voices must also be heard today. For faith and life come from hearing.

In both Germany and England, the oratorio began its triumphant march through Europe immediately after the publication of the sheet music. It struck a chord with the spirit of the times. After only 18 months, the 50th performance was recorded. Schumann called Paulus a ‘jewel of the present’. Today, it has been unjustly overshadowed by Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah.

Listen here (approx. 13 minutes):

No. 12 Recitative and aria: ‘But Saul...’ (2'20)

No. 13 Recitative and arioso: ‘And went with a...’ (2'51)

No. 14 Recitative with choir: ‘And when he was on his way...’ (2'40)

No. 15 Chorus: ‘Arise! Become light!’ (4'54)


Listening companion:

Commentary 

Text (German)

Text (English)

12. Recitative and Aria Narrator (Tenor): 
The actions of Paul, the persecutor of Christians, are described in drastic terms, serving as a negative foil for his subsequent conversion.


Paul's aria quotes psalms of cursing and uses them to legitimise his actions. Evil is shifted onto God. The same B minor motif is used for both ‘Destroy them’ and ‘Lord of Hosts’. Allegro molto accompanies a sixteenth-note furore of the strings accompanying the zealot. Sfozato timpani accents support the character of a Baroque revenge aria.

13. Recitive and Arioso Narrator (Alto):
The threatening recitative transforms into an arioso that musically expresses confident prayer and faith in God's closeness.


Arioso (Andantino):
This arioso is characterised by a simple, song-like melody at the beginning and end.
In the middle section, the melody transforms into a stern recitative that becomes an admonishing sermon against all the proud.

14. Recitive Narrator (T):
Christians originally called themselves ‘those who follow the Way’ (Acts 9:2). Paul's conversion takes place ‘on the Way’. As is often the case with Bach, we hear what is happening in the recitative: the singer's voice falls three times down: ‘from heaven’, ‘the earth’ and ‘a voice’.
The orchestra builds dramatically until the women's choir enters brightly in piano: ‘Saul, Saul...’. The women's voices are accompanied ethereally by gently repeated chords in the brass and bright woodwinds, and can awaken in the listener a kind of ‘sense of the infinite’ (as Mendelssohn's contemporary Schleiermacher called religion).

Paul's critical question is part of the prophetic pattern of a vocation story.

The women's voices sing the confirmation in the same bright musical light.

The scene continues as a recitative, accompanied by a tremulous tremolo in the strings, and leads to the simple command to rise and go into the city (musically underscored by a bright upward movement in the high winds!). But there is no more to the command than that.

15. Chorus:
A grand orchestral crescendo, originating from the bass and musically representing Paul's rising and resurrection to faith, opens an oratorio choir. As with Handel and Bach, it accompanies the narrated events with additional reflection. It connects the future role of Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, with the hope of the prophet known as Tritojesaiah (cf. Isa 60). After the Babylonian exile, he proclaimed to monarchical and priestly circles a Judaism that was open to non-Jews and foreigners and promised ‘light’ not only for Judaism but for all peoples.
First male cantors, then female cantors open the choir with the urgent call: ‘Arise, become light,’ which dominates the entire first part of the choir and ends luminously.
The middle section then comes as a fugue: ‘For behold, darkness...’. Darkness is everywhere, in all the polyphonic voices of the fugue, intertwined and interwoven. Striking brass calls urge ‘Become light’ against the darkness, until the choir turns more and more towards the light again. At the very end, after everything, there is the purely orchestral brass call, which once again sounds the ‘Arise’ without words.

12. Rezititativ und Arie Erzähler (Tenor):
Saulus aber zerstörte die Gemeinde und wütete mit Drohen und Morden wider die Jünger und lästerte sie und sprach:


Paulus: Vertilge sie, Herr Zebaoth, wie Stoppeln vor dem Feuer! Sie wollen nicht erkennen, dass du mit deinem Namen heißest Herr allein, der Höchste in aller Welt. Lass deinen Zorn sie treffen, verstummen müssen sie!




13. Rezititativ und Arioso Erzählerin (Alt):
Und zog mit einer Schar gen Damaskus und hatte Macht und Befehl von den Hohepriestern, Männer und Weiber gebunden zu führen gen Jerusalem.

Arioso (Andantino):
Doch der Herr vergisst die seinen nicht, er gedenkt seiner Kinder. Fallt vor ihm nieder, ihr Stolzen, denn der Herr ist nahe!



14. Rezitativ Erzähler (Tenor):
Und als er auf dem Wege war und nahe zu Damaskus kam, umleuchtete ihn plötzlich ein Licht vom Himmel, und er fiel auf die Erde und hörte eine Stimme, die sprach zu ihm:



Stimme Jesu (Chor SSA):
Saul, was verfolgst du mich?










Erzähler (T): Er aber sprach: "Herr, wer bist du?" Der Herr sprach zu ihm:

Stimme Jesu (Chor SSA): Ich bin Jesus von Nazareth, den du verfolgst!

Erzähler(T): Und er sprach mit Zittern und Zagen: "Herr, was willst du, das ich tun soll?" Der Herr sprach zu ihm:
Stimme Jesu (Chor SSA): Stehe auf und gehe in die Stadt, da wird man dir sagen, was du tun sollst.


15. Chor:
Mache dich auf, werde Licht! Denn dein Licht kommt, und die Herrlichkeit des Herrn gehet auf über dir.

Denn siehe, Finsternis bedeckt das Erdreich und Dunkel die Völker. Aber über dir gehet auf der Herr, und seine Herrlichkeit erscheinet über dir.

12. Recitative and Aria Narrator (Tenor): 
Saul however disrupted the congregation and raged with threats and murders against the disciples and slandered them and said:

Paul:  Exterminate them, O Lord of Sabaoth, like stubble before the fire! They will not recognize that you alone are the Lord, the Highest all over the world. Vent your fury upon them; they must be silenced!





13. Recitive and Arioso Narrator (Alto):
And he went with a mob towards Damascus and he had power and command of the High Priest, to bring men and women bound to Jerusalem.

Arioso (Andantino):
However the Lord forgets not his own; he remembers his children. The proud fall down before him, because the Lord is near!


 

14. Recitive Narrator (T):
And as he was on the way, and came near to Damascus, he was suddenly illuminated by a light from heaven, and he fell to the earth and heard a voice that said to him:  



Voice of Jesus (Chorus SSA): Saul, why do you persecute me?










Narrator (T): He, however said: "Lord, who are you?" The Lord said to him:  

Voice of Jesus (Choir SSA): I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute!

Narrator (T): And he spoke, with fear and trembling: "Lord, what do you want, that I should do?" The Lord said to him:  
Voice Jesus (Chorus SSA): Rise and go into the city. There someone will tell you what you should do.


15. Chorus:
Arise! Let there be light! Then your light comes, and the glory the Lord rises over you.


Then, behold, gloom overshadows the land and darkness the people. However over you goes forth the Lord, and his glory appears above you.

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Website: Unknown Violin Concertos

 

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