Format : Vocal Score
From Elijah. For SATB Choir (Mixed Voices) with Piano Accompaniment.
SKU: BR.SON-427
ISBN 9790004803080. 10 x 12.5 inches.
Based on the conviction that all material authored by its composer belongs to the musical work as such and therefore needs to be published, this volume collects all surviving drafts that Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy made for his magnum opus, the oratorio Elijah op. 70. It not only incorporates preliminary studies and sketches that by no means always take a direct route to a specific version of the work, but also those passages that were eliminated from already completed texts and that are of special analytical interest. Due to Mendelssohn's way of working and the particular circumstances of source transmission at the end of his life a considerable number of later discarded movements as well as revised versions have come down to us. All these sources provide us with detailed information both about the composer's work method and about the genesis of the composition in question. The volume prepared by the editor-in-chief of the Mendelssohn complete edition contains all known autograph sources with annotation referring to the genesis of Elijah, as well as other surviving, as yet unspecified related material. The wealth of documents, compiled and arranged in an exemplary fashion and presented in an unconventional scholarly format, is reproduced in all its complexity while at the same time enabling users in a highly illustrative way to trace details of Mendelssohn's modus operandi. The edition of sketches and drafts, revised and discarded settings of Elijah hereby constitutes a remarkable example of a creative approach to the object of research that nevertheless strictly adheres to the historical facts.Awarded the German Music Edition Prize 2023.
SKU: BR.SON-442
ISBN 9790004803509. 10 x 12.5 inches.
This volume contains three reworkings and orchestrations of religious works by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy which were originally set for smaller ensembles (solo voices, four-part chorus and organ). They were composed at different times and for different occasions, two of them as commissions. The anthem ,,Why, o Lord, delay forever MWV A 19 was originally the sacred vocal piece MWV B 33, published in England in 1841 with the additional title ,,[…] The Thirteenth Psalm, and in Germany in the same year as ,,Lass, o Herr, mich Hilfe finden with the title ,,Drei geistliche Lieder which was composed at the suggestion of the English literature and music lover Charles B. Broadley who also provided the paraphrase of the psalm text. After Mendelssohn had refused an initial request by Broadley to furnish the anthem post festum with an organ prelude, the composer did not want to turn down a second request to orchestrate the work and he even expanded the existing material with a lengthy closing fugue involving additional trumpets and timpani. The ,,Ave Maria MWV B 19 was written in connection with Mendelssohn's appointment as municipal music director, a position which at the same time included the responsibility for the musical organization of church services. The instrumentation of the work with an accompaniment of two clarinets and two bassoons as well as low strings was due to the fact that the organ in Dusseldorf's principal church St. Lambertus was out of order for an extended period of time, and Mendelssohn considered this solution explicitly only as a surrogate for the organ should there be none. A further psalm paraphrase in English, this time by William Bartholomew, of the hymn ,,Hear my prayer MWV B 49 was set to music in early 1844; the orchestration of the organ part commissioned by the distinguished Dublin musician Joseph Robinson was not completed until 1847 so that the premiere finally only took place after Mendelssohn's death. In the further course of the century ,,Hear my prayer would, particularly in the version with organ accompaniment, come to enjoy great popularity in Great Britain and Ireland.
SKU: BR.SON-453
ISBN 9790004803639. 10 x 12.5 inches.
This Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy anthology contains 19 sacred vocal works in various choral and sometimes additional solo settings, with organ, harpsichord, or basso continuo accompaniment. Among these pieces composed from 1821 to 1847 are six works that were not published during Mendelssohn's lifetime. Seven of the works presented are each extant in at least one other authorized version that has also been edited here. The occasions and circumstances of their composition vary as much as their musical structures and characteristics: Several were intended for specific performances; others were written from the outset for publication.
SKU: BR.SON-433
ISBN 9790004802892. 10 x 12.5 inches.
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's violin concerto op. 64 had - like many of his other works - a lengthy genesis: it is in the summer of 1838 that surviving documents first mention the promise made to his friend Ferdinand David, concert master of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, to write, besides a sonata, a grand solo concerto for him. Ultimately, work on this opus continued - with some longer interruptions - until September 1844. Even then, it owed its preliminary completion in no small measure to the constant urging of the prospective solo violinist. But after the ,,official handing-over of the parts to David and a first joint rehearsal of the concert in Leipzig Mendelssohn continued working on the score. There subsequently began an intensive correspondence with David between Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main, where Mendelssohn resided with his family, in particular concerning issues of the principal part and the reworking of the solo cadence. In March 1845 the then current version of the work was premiered in a subscribers' concert in Leipzig.This volume deals with Mendelssohn's first complete manuscript of the score with the corrections contained therein, including all surviving drafts and sketches; also included is the epistolary evidence of the correspondence with Ferdinand David prior to the premiere. The further developments up to the printing of the main version of op. 64 by Breitkopf & Hartel are dealt with in Series II, Vol. 7 of the edition.
SKU: BR.SON-429
ISBN 9790004803097. 10 x 12.5 inches. German / English.
The Critical Report on the oratorio Elijah concludes the five-volume edition of this major work by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. It presents - by way of exception in the form of a volume separate from the music editions - the summary of all the editorial commentaries particularly associated with the early versions (Volume V/11A) and the final version (Volume V/11) of Elijah, which has appeared in print. With the piano reduction (Volume V/11B) and the volume containing sketches and discarded versions (Volume V/11C), the Critical Report interweaves in other ways: Since it was possible to realize an independent, self-contained commentary for the former one, the present complete report only contains the relevant source overviews and descriptions but no source evaluation and text-critical remarks. The volume of sketches and discarded versions, on the other hand, containing a classification and comments on all the musical documents the composer had not intended for the public - among them, in particular, the documentation of the work's modification for the final version - serves not least as a supplement and practical illustration of the verbal explanations contained in the Critical Report. Thus, the Critical Report, as Volume V/11D of the Edition, is intended to bundle, systematize and provide conclusive commentaries on the documents transmitted in connection with the Elijah, including not only the musical, but also all written documents - libretto drafts, correspondence, sources on the (English) reception -- that are specifically presented in this volume. The Critical Report on Elijah contains the presentation and evaluation of a total of six source collections and nearly 260 individual sources, including no fewer than 20 libretto drafts written by Mendelssohn himself or with his participation. An essential component is also a detailed chronology of the work's genesis. Mendelssohn's creative work on his second oratorio took an unusually long period of twelve years, in fact almost a third of his life.Awarded the German Music Edition Prize 2023.
SKU: BR.SON-425
ISBN 9790004802809. 10 x 12.5 inches.
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy fundamentally revised his Elijah after its successful world premiere in Birmingham in summer 1846. However, the individual layers of this revision are less visible in the autograph score than in the piano-vocal score that was made parallel to it and which the composer kept working on for its simultaneous publication in England and Germany.Awarded the German Music Edition Prize 2023.
SKU: BR.SON-455
ISBN 9790004803653. 9 x 12 inches.
Between 1834 and 1847 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy composed a total of 28 songs for mixed voices, i.e. for two female (soprano and alto) and two male (tenor and bass) voices each. The pieces are arranged so that they can be sung by four individual singers as well as by smaller ensembles or large choirs. The composer had almost two-thirds of these works published by Breitkopf and Hartel in the collections opp. 41, 48 and 59, combining partly already existing and partly newly composed songs into a loose cycle of six songs each. The purpose of such occasional music was clear to him: ... the most natural music of all is when four people go for a walk together, in the forest, or on a boat, and then immediately carry the music with them and in them. The present volume contains all the songs published and unpublished during his lifetime, as well as their versions, which owe their various performance contexts.
SKU: BR.SON-437
ISBN 9790004803158. 10 x 12.5 inches.
Nine variegated Sacred Vocal Works with Orchestra by Mendelssohn have been compiled in this volume. They stem not only from various creative phases of the composer, but also in view of their vocal settings show up marked differences and thus reflect the variety of Mendelssohns creative oeuvre. One shared aspect is that all nine works remained unprinted during the composers lifetime. Only the Lauda Sion achieved celebrity; it was published with the posthumously attributed opus number 73 and took its place next to other choral works by Mendelssohn already in the 19th century. Now published within the Mendelssohn Complete Edition, it boasts a text-critically revised score available in many cases for the first time, and from which impulses for musical practice are sure to arise.
