We’re looking forward to performing three psalm settings by Felix Mendelssohn at our concert on 4 March 2023. This note gives some of the background as to how these pieces came to be written.
In 1840 a new king came to the throne of Prussia …
(At the time, Germany was several decades away from formal unification. Prussia was the largest German state with its capital in Berlin).
King Frederick William IV had plans for culture within his realm. His father Frederick William III had unified the various Lutheran and Calvanist churches into a single protestant church. The new king’s plan was for music to play a more important part in the Protestant liturgy, So he set to work reforming it. He needed a musician to make all of this happen, and who better than Felix Mendelssohn, who was at the height of his powers?
In November 1842, after many months of negotiations, Mendelssohn was appointed Generalmusicdirektor for church music. He would be responsible for directing the choir and orchestra at Berlin Cathedral, the Berliner Dom, for reviving music from the past and making it suitable for use, and for writing new music as needed.
(The current Berliner Dom was built at the end of the 19th century, In Mendelssohn’s time the cathedral looked like this)
In 1843 a choir was formed consisting of 18 boy sopranos (+ 5 reserves), 18 boy altos(+ 5 reserves), 9 tenors and 15 basses. There was also in place an instrumental ensemble consisting of 24 – 30 musicians from the court orchestra. Massow the king’s advisor, wrote to Mendelssohn that the choir would be ready by the following winter.
Also in 1843 Massow sent Mendelssohn a brief for what music was required, The first dates were to be as follows:
- Christmas Day 1843
- New Year’s Day 1844
- Passion Sunday “Judica” 1844
- Good Friday 1844
Psalms featured prominently and Felix was instructed to compose psalm settings for performance as introits to the services on these important days. A short gradual motet was also needed. Here’s a list of the main new music he created.
Christmas Day 1843
Psalm 2 : Warum toden die Heiden (the original version!)
Verse, gradual: Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden, und preiset Gott!
New Year’s Day 1844
Psalm 98 (introit) Singet dem Herrn, comp 27 dec 43 – this setting is for soloists, choir and orchestra.
Verse, gradual – Herr Gott du bist unsre Zuflucht
Passion Sunday “Judica” 1844
Psalm 43, Richte Mich Gott – the published version, although there is an unpublished revision
Verse, gradual – Herr, gedenke nicht unsrer Übeltaten) comp. 14 Feb 44
Good Friday 1844
Psalm 22 Mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen
Verse, gradual, Um unsrer Sünden
The first of the Psalm settings ‘Warum toden die Heiden’ is a dramatic setting, perhaps the best of the three. Mendelssohn sets the text of this long psalm with great sensitivity and his music tells the story of the psalm.
On New Year’s day Mendelssohn directed the choir, orchestra and soloists in the first performance of his Psalm 98 which makes use of the harp, trumpet and horns at an appropriate point in the music. This may have been a strategic error, or perhaps it was deliberate!
It seems that Mendelssohn’s first efforts didn’t go down well with the clergy at the Berliner Dom. Felix’s sister Fanny wrote to a friend describing her brother’s position at the cathedral as “so-so” and adding that he found it impossible to get on with one of the cathedral clergy. On 8 February Felix wrote to his brother Paul that there was “a certain difficulty with the ‘psalmody’ at the cathedral”.
After the Christmas and New Year services, Felix was asked to simplify his compositional style, making the music less complex and the text setting clearer, including removing most repetitions of the text. Felix took this on board in the setting of psalm 43 for Passion Sunday, and most noticeably in the setting of Psalm 22 for Good Friday.
After receiving from the King’s advisor the catalogue of the psalm introits for the period from Good Friday to Pentecost, Mendelssohn diplomatically requested that this task be shared with other composers : August Neithardt, Moritz Hauptmann, Ludwig Spohr, Carl Loewe, and a Dane called Granzig.
Mendelssohn probably decided that his energies were better spent composing music for settings where it was appreciated and for which he could more freely follow his artistic instincts. Psalm 22 was therefore his last major composition for the Berliner Dom. Felix managed to extract himself from his commitments at Berlin cathedral which left him free to travel to England in the summer of 1844 where he enjoyed high quality performances of his orchestral music thanks to a series of concerts at the Philharmonic society in London.
Whilst we might wish that Mendelssohn had stayed at Berlin Cathedral and written more choral music, we should perhaps be grateful that he was allowed to move on, because 1844 was the year in which he wrote his much loved violin concerto in E minor.
Psalms 2, 43 and 22 were published after Mendelssohn’s death as his opus 78. The published version of Psalm 2 is Mendelssohn’s revised version from 1845 which simplifies his original intentions. The more spicy original version was published fairly recently and had not been recorded, so far as I know!
The four gradual settings were published with two other short settings as Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79
The manuscripts of Mendelssohn’s choral music for Berlin are in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Kraków. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, we can view them online here.
There are many letters and documents relating to Mendelssohn’s time as Generalmusicdirektor for church music in Berlin in the Deneke-Mendelssohn Collection in the Bodleian library.
My thanks to David Brodbeck for his article “A Winter of discontent” in “Mendelssohn Studies” 1992 which is the source for much of the above.
Thanks also to Peter Ward Jones for reading the above. Peter points out that “the most important part of Mendelssohn’s activities in the king’s service was surely the composition of theatrical music for the court – the incidental music for the productions of Antigone, Oedipus in Colonos, Athalie, and, of course, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This was the true musical legacy of these Berlin years.”
Peter adds “I suspect that at the root of Mendelssohn’s trouble with the clergy may have been their resentment at what they must have felt to be excessive royal intrusion into liturgical matters, and for them Mendelssohn was ‘one of the king’s men’. The congregation’s apparent reaction to the musical innovations probably added to their antagonism. It must be admitted that the general impression (particularly perhaps on New Year’s Day) was something of a musical mish-mash.”
Tim Ault
February 2023