University of Hartford "H" Magazine - Winter 2019

University of Hartford

When the University of Hartford was incorporated just over 50 years ago by business and community leaders, they envisioned a center of education and culture for Greater Hartford. Read more...

WWUH FCC On Line Public File

WWUH FCC EEO Reports

Persons with disabilities who wish to access the WWUH Public File may contact John Ramsey at: ramsey@hartford.edu

Visit WWUH on Facebook    Follow WWUH on Twitter

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Mendelssohn: Paulus

03/26/2023 1:00 pm
03/26/2023 4:30 pm

 

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy completed two oratorios, Elias or Elijah (1846) and Paulus or St. Paul (1836). Elijah is much better known and has a considerable discography. At Easter of 1996 I broadcast a Telarc CD recording of it with Robert Shaw leading the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. The earlier work, Paulus, is Mendelssohn's successful experiment in combining the eighteenth-century oratorio traditions of Bach and Handel with the new romantic style of the nineteenth century. It was Mendelssohn who revived the Bach St. Matthew Passion at Berlin in 1829 and in so doing began the general revival of J. S. Bach's music in modern times. Mendelssohn was consciously trying to follow in the master's footsteps.

On Easter Sunday of 2002, I presented the Chandos CD release of Paulus with the late Richard Hickox conducting the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales (a Musical Heritage Society release in the US). Thereafter, on March 14, 2010 came another recording of Paulus issued through Hänssler/Profil in 2008, like the Telarc recording, sung in the original German. I return to the Chandos/MHS recording as my offering on this fifth and last Sunday of Lent.