Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Handel/Mendelssohn: Israel in Aegypten; Fasch: Passio Jesu Christi

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

It's well known that Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy gave a big boost to public interest in Bach's music when in 1829 he conducted a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin. Much less known is Mendelssohn's deep interest in Handel. Mendelssohn gave a performance of Handel's oratorio Solomon in Cologne in 1835. He made updated arrangements of the scores of many of the oratorios of the baroque master, orchestrating them according to nineteenth century standards. Mendelssohn in particular liked Israel in Egypt. He conducted several performances of it in its entirety or in selected segments in the 1830s and 1840s, in Berlin, Leipzig, and Dusseldorf. The performance materials associated with the 1833 production of the oratorio at the Lower Rhine Festival at Dusseldorf have been preserved.

English conductor Robert King has attempted to recreate that festival production. King has reconstructed a score drawing upon all of Mendelssohn's alterations to Handel's original music. (Mendelssohn wrote his own overture in Romantic style.) The work was sung in German language translation and was titled Israel in Aegypten. The period instrumemt ensemble Robert King founded, the King's Consort, is associated with historically informed interpretations of eighteenth century music like the oratorios of Handel. For their 2015 recording of Israel in Aegypten the Consort recreated the sound of an early nineteenth century orchestra. They are joined by the Choir of the King's Consort. Five vocal soloists also participate. The recording was released on two compact discs under the auspices of the Vivat Music Foundation.

Johann Sebastian Bach is known to have composed two Passion oratorios only. Bach never set to music the libretto of Brockes Passion, published in 1712, the way so many of his colleagues did all across Lutheran Northern Germany. These included fellow musicmasters Handel and Telemann. Bach's colleague, the musicmaster in the town of Zerbst, Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758) contributed to the big batch of Brockes Passion compositions. The text Fasch worked from is a much shortened version of Barthold Heinrich Brockes' published verse. What Fasch titled his Passio Jesu Christi may have been composed in 1723, but possibly earlier, perhaps 1717-19.

Two manuscript copies of the Fasch Passio have survived. The Leipzig manuscript is largely followed in the performing edition of the work employed in what has got to be its world premiere recording for the Naxos record label. The Hungarian period instrument ensemble, the Capella Savaria Baroque Orchestra, is heard under the direction of Mary Terey-Smith. Joining the orchestra are the choral voices of the Scola Cantorum Budapestiensis. There are three solo singing roles: the Evangelist, Jesus, and the Daughter of Zion. A 2008 Naxos release on a single silver disc.