Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809 –
1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was
a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of
the early romantic period. Mendelssohn wrote
symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano music and
chamber music. His best-known works include his
Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's
Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the
overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and
his String Octet. His Songs With...(+)
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809 –
1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was
a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of
the early romantic period. Mendelssohn wrote
symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano music and
chamber music. His best-known works include his
Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's
Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the
overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and
his String Octet. His Songs Without Words are his most
famous solo piano compositions. After a long period of
relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and
antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
his creative originality has been re-evaluated. He is
now among the most popular composers of the romantic
era.
Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany, and
revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach,
notably with his performance of the St Matthew Passion
in 1829. He became well received in his travels
throughout Europe as a composer, conductor and soloist;
his ten visits to Britain – during which many of his
major works were premiered – form an important part
of his adult career. His essentially conservative
musical tastes set him apart from more adventurous
musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard
Wagner, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Hector Berlioz. The
Leipzig Conservatoire, which he founded, became a
bastion of this anti-radical outlook.
The Three Sacred Choruses, Op 23, were composed shortly
after Mendelssohn’s arrival in Rome in November 1830
and directly in response to one of his first visits to
the Vatican City. The twenty-one-year-old composer
reported enthusiastically to his family that each
morning he would play, sing and compose before setting
off on sight-seeing trips around the Italian capital.
Musically, however, he was decidedly underwhelmed,
bemoaning the prevailing standards of orchestral
playing as ‘worse than anyone can possibly
imagine’. The singing he heard also apparently left a
lot to be desired. The first of the Three Sacred
Choruses, Aus tiefer Not, is structured in five
sections, four of which are unaccompanied and built on
the main chorale theme. The central third—itself a
paraphrase of the chorale—is accompanied and cast in
Mendelssohn’s flowing, lyrical style, in stark
contrast to the neo-Bachian music (most notably the
fugal second movement) by which it is surrounded.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aus_tiefer_Not_schrei_ic
h_zu_dir).
Although originally composed for Chorus (SATB), I
created this Interpretation of the "Aus tiefer Noth
schrei' ich zu dir" (from deep affliction I cry out to
you) from "Kirchenmusik" (Church Music Op. 23 No. 1)
for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viols & Cello).
SHEET MUSIC