Mendelssohn Elijah or Elias ?

[Barbirollians]

I have always found this a rather worthy work from both Sargent and originally Fruhbeck de Burgos .

Having now come across Sawallisch's German language version on Philips Duo - all falls into place - Lovely airy singing all round especially from Ameling and Schreier. Much less portentous than sung in English .

[teamsaint]

Does that CD version have a libretto with English translation ?
TBF if that lineup can’t nail it, there is no hope.

( I haven’t ever listened to this all the way through, or read the libretto . Surely it should be portentous ?!)

Edit For any vinyl fans, there are some nice looking 3x LP copies available at sensible prices .

[smittims]

I found Elijah a bit dull and stodgy until I discovered the Krips recording. That's the one for me. Kingsway Hall 1954 I think, and sung in English.

[cloughie]

Mendelssohn’s choral works have little appeal to me. They seem to be a stodgy contrast to his lively orchestral and chamber works. I rarely go beyond the Sinfonia when listening to his Sym 2. I know people who have sung Elijah and enjoyed the sing but I think it probably a different experience to sitting and listening to a performance.

[Pulcinella]

The Baal double chorus sequence (and then Lord God...) was one of my O-Level set works; I never found it 'worthy'; rather thrilling, in fact.
And of course we used the Novello English vocal score: I don't think we ever saw the full orchestral score.

[mopsus]

I've just sung his motet Richte mir, Gott for the first time and found a rather disconcerting similarity in its final section (which is based on an earlier motet) to the first of the Baal choruses. I have performed Elijah a few times, always in English, and feel it would benefit from a few judicious cuts, although that is hard to do in a narrative work.

[Petrushka]

We used to sing 'He That Shall Endure to the End' in our church choir decades ago. I have the Sawallisch recording, not yet played, in the recent box and the German text is easily available online.

[mopsus]

Lift thine eyes is still used as an upper-voice anthem. O Rest in the Lord used to be a popular piece for contraltos, but you don't hear it now outside the entire work.

There was a much publicised recording some years back conducted by Paul Daniel. It had a rather preposterous cover photo of Bryn Terfel, who sang the title role, dressed as an Old Testament prophet with talc in his beard to whiten it.

[smittims]

Oh dear. I must say the over-exposure of Bryn Terfel on CD covers has quite put me off him. There was a Delius CD which did this, and I had to cut out a miniature picture of the original cover and stick it over Bryn-boyo.

[Barbirollians]

No translation back into English on a Philips Duo - gloriously non stodgy singing and conducting though.

[MickyD]

There's a very nice version from Herreweghe, boasting Isokoski, Ainsley and Groop.

[Master Jacques]

I have always found this a rather worthy work from both Sargent and originally Fruhbeck de Burgos .

Having now come across Sawallisch's German language version on Philips Duo - all falls into place - Lovely airy singing all round especially from Ameling and Schreier. Much less portentous than sung in English .

On what grounds, 'less portentous'? Might it not be that it is the performance which works this magic, irrespective of the supposed superiority of one language over another? The Sawallisch is certainly a delight, with great instrumental clarity and some good singing. Pity about Theo Adam's dry barking in the title role, though - microphones tended not to catch his voice well. Mind you, having sung it in English (and in full) myself many years ago, as a boy treble, I continue to love every word and note of this wonderful work. In either language.

My own experiences of the work have tended to be the other way. Hearing it in my own language makes me appreciate so much more deeply what's going on. It moves me in English, as opposed to passing the time pleasantly. Fruhbeck de Burgos, with Jones, Baker, Gedda and FIscher-Dieskau is different gravy to Sawallisch. Much more dramatic, varied and gripping. It is even uncomfortable in places, as it ought to be.

As for portentousness, why not? An element of solemnity really does not harm Elijah's scriptural message. That's rather the point of the Old Testament story, isn't it?

[Barbirollians]

I was using portentous rather more in its modern sense involimg stodginess than of portent. I hear more of Mendelssohn's hero Bach in that German version .

[Master Jacques]

I wonder which English performances sounded stodgy to you? In my experience, there are some equally stodgy German ones. But I take your point about Sawallisch and Bach: German performances are often keen to emphasise Mendelssohn's (alleged) debt to Bach, at the expense of his more audible debt to Handel.

By chance, I've been listening to Kurt Masur's excellent performance of Paulus this week (Gundula Jonowitz, Theo Adam et al.) I was struck by the fact that Mendelssohn's wonderful Chorale settings - the heart of the work - move in the opposite direction to Bach's, progressively using counterpoint to emphasise their harmonic and melodic human beauty, rather than their monolithic structural religiosity.

Personally, I suppose I prefer Mendelssohn performances which emphasise ... well, their Mendelssohnian qualities. So it's the Spaniard Frühbeck de Burgos for me!