- This work premiered on June 25, 1840, at a festival celebrating the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg’s moveable type.1 The performance took place at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig,2 where Bach was once Kantor.
- For the opening of the same festival, Mendelssohn composed a Festgesang for male voices and brass band.3 The melody of its second movement was adapted (after Mendelssohn’s death) as the tune of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.”
- Lobgesang was published in 1841.4
- Mendelssohn designated this work a symphony-cantata. Mendelssohn’s biographer Larry Todd explains that this work is a response to Beethoven’s choral symphony, and that other composers were also working on their own versions of Beethoven’s symphony/choral hybrid invention at the time: Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette symphony (1839) is another example.5
- Structure: This work opens with an orchestral movement that compresses a three-movement sinfonia structure into one movement. This mini-symphony is then followed by a nine-movement cantata for choir, vocal soloist, and orchestra.6
- The cantata is set to biblical texts meant to express humanity’s progress toward enlightenment – a nod to the occasion of its premiere, the anniversary of Gutenberg’s moveable-type printing press, which resulted, among other things, in the Gutenberg Bible.
- Full libretto and translation
Sources
- R. Larry Todd, “Mendelssohn(-Bartholdy), (Jacob Ludwig) Felix,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed May 27, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051795.
- Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Carol Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, eds., Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from 1833-1847, trans. Lady Wallace (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green, 1863), 452.
- Ibid.
- Todd, “Mendelssohn(-Bartholdy), (Jacob Ludwig) Felix,” Grove Music Online.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
Cut IDs
22895, 46808