Chandos Anthem No. 9 "O Praise the Lord With One Consent" HWV 254 - G.F. Handel
"Oh, Rest in the Lord" from Elijah - Felix Mendelssohn
"Maestoso and Andante tranquillo" Sonata No. 3 in A Major Op. 65 - Felix Mendelssohn
Hymns: #423 St. Denio, #508 Nova Vita, #529 McKee
The music for this Sunday features the works of two composers that were born and raised in Germany but found much of their success in England. Handel and Mendelssohn both saw huge amounts of success through their composition of oratorios. Mendelssohn's oratorios are seen as a direct link to those of Handel as well as to the choral writing of J.S. Bach.
The prelude this week is a transcription of Ombra mai fu from Handel's opera Xerxes (or Serse, its Italian title.) Handel wrote this opera in 1738 when he received a commission from the King's Theatre in London. It was an enormous flop and received only five performances. The reason for its dismal reception is largely due to the fact that it combined elements of comic opera and serious opera - a big no-no of the time. It has received a much warmer welcome from 20th and 21st century patrons for the same reason that it was panned by Handel's critics. The inclusion of comic elements combined with shorter pieces of music have made it a favorite of modern audiences. The aria Ombra mai fu (Never was a shade) is sung by Xerxes about a tree. This piece has been arranged for several different combinations of instruments under the name Largo despite being marked Larghetto in Handel's score, and is very popular as an organ solo. This transcription is by Edwin Arthur Kraft (1883-1962) who was the organist at Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland for 50 years. The transcription first assigns the melody to solo oboe with accompaniment played on a soft flute but for the repeat of the theme
is placed in the pedals on a solo flute with accompaniment provided by a celesta stop (common on many turn of the century American organs) before returning to the fuller chords of the opening few measures.
The gradual anthem is also by Handel, and also the result of a commission. Henry James Brydges, Duke of Chandos(1673-1744) lived a princely life until the great South Sea bubble financial disaster. Brydges rose quickly through the ranks of society through force of personality, ability and marrying well. As part of the dowry for his first wife, Mary Lake, he received a manor known as Canons. Brydges enlarged this home to a palatial scale and surrounded himself with art and artists including Handel. The Chandos anthems (HWV 245-56) were commissioned for performance at the Church of St. Lawrence which was on the Canons estate. Despite the demolition of the palace in 1747 the church remains in tact today. Handel drew on the psalms as his source for these anthems, often combining them with little regard for the integrity of the text. He then composed music befitting the texts that he had assembled. O Praise the Lord with One Consent is a setting of Psalms 117, 135, and 148 in eight movements. The title anthem is in two parts. The first is a fugue on the text "O praise the Lord with one consent and magnify and magnify his name" the second a fugue on "let all the servants of the Lord His worthy praise proclaim."
The communion anthem for this week is Oh, Rest in the Lord from Elijah by Felix Mendelssohn. This was one of Mendelssohn's best loved compositions. It was commissioned for the Birmingham Festival of 1846. Mendelssohn had the idea of an oratorio based on the Biblical prophet Elijah on his mind or ten years prior to this commission but had been unable to find a librettist that was willing to provide him with a text that was dramatic enough. This oratorio is a collection of scenes from the life of Elijah. This aria is sung by an angel to Elijah who is, once again, complaining about his circumstances and asking God to grant him death. The angel instructs him to find "rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him." This aria, one of the best known from the work was almost cut from Mendelssohn's revised version of the work.
The postlude is the second movement of Mendelssohn's third organ sonata in A major. Mendelssohn received a commission for a set of organ voluntaries in 1844. He drafted seven individual pieces but then decided to extend and regroup them into sonatas - not in the way that we think of sonatas but instead into groups of diverse pieces. The first movement of this sonata is based on the Lutheran chorale Aus tiefer not. The second movement is thought by some to have been composed for his sister, Fanny's wedding. The movement begins with large sweeping gestures but then changes character completely and becomes a gentle lilting minuet to finish out the sonata.
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