Felix Mendelssohn Suggest updates
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Born Hamburg, 3 February 1809.
Died Leipzig, 4 November 1847.
German composer.
It is widely recognised that Mendelssohn was a childhood genius, turning out concertos, overtures and string symphonies of amazing quality. It is, perhaps, less well known that he produced a series of charming little comic operas which were also produced within the domestic environment. They are rarely performed, and little known. The mature composer never stopped searching for a suitable subject for a romantic opera, but it was only a short time before his death that he at last began work on Die Loreley, and completed little of it. We do not at present intend to give details of performances of oratorios in general, but we list here his two mature choral works, St Paul and Elijah, because their dramatic content shows how good an opera he might have produced, and, in listing some important performances, we will be able to highlight appearances in Scotland by great singers who may rarely, if ever, have been seen here on the operatic stage.
Operas and oratorios performed in Scotland are shown in bold:-
01 Ich, J Mendelssohn (1820 unfin) ()
02 Die Soldatenliebschaft (1821) (Casper)
03 Die beiden Pädagogen (Berlin 1820) (Casper)
04 Die wandernden Komödianten (Berlin 1822) (Casper)
05 Der Onkel aus Boston, oder Die beiden Neffen (Berlin 1823) (Casper)
06 Die Hochzeit des Camacho, op10 (1824; Berlin 1827) (Voigt)
07 Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde, - Son and Stranger, op89 (Berlin 1829) (Klingemann)
08 Paulus - St Paul, op36 (Düsseldorf 1836) (cpsr & Schubring)
09 Elias - Elijah, op70 (Birmingham 1846) (Schubring, trans Bartholomew)
10 Die Loreley (1847 unfin) (Geibel)
