Composed: 1845-46
Premiered: 1846, England
Duration: 2 hours 13 minutes

In Mendelssohn’s mid-1830s, he turned to oratorio, an opera without sets and costumes.

His first example, St. Paul, debuted with enormous success in 1836. Another oratorio from his pen was inevitable. He chose the noble Hebrew prophet Elijah as the central character.

After his friend Karl Klingemann was able to produce only the outline of a libretto, Mendelssohn turned to clergyman Julius Schubring, author of the text for St. Paul, to work with him again on Elijah. They made slow progress, leading to the project’s being shelved completely. Elijah lay fallow for seven years, until a commission from England’s Birmingham Festival rekindled Mendelssohn’s enthusiasm. He and Schubring resumed their labours with great intensity, due to the short period remaining before the scheduled premiere. The composer’s exertions may have hastened his premature death the following year. Schubring prepared the libretto in German. Mendelssohn then gave it to William Bartholomew, whose English translation retained a great deal of the original Biblical text.

Elijah was premiered on schedule in Birmingham on August 26, 1846. Mendelssohn conducted it himself, thus being able to receive its overwhelming acclaim in person. Mendelssohn was hailed as the true successor to Handel (whose oratorios he had regularly conducted at this festival). To this day, Elijah remains second in popularity only to Handel’s Messiah with British oratorio audiences.

Program note by Don Anderson © 2022.