Twenty-one-year old
Mendelssohn arrived in Rome in November
1830 and one of his first visits to
the Vatican City inspired him to write
his Three Sacred Choruses, Op.
23. These effectively encapsulate the
concerns which Mendelssohn was to re-visit
in most of his subsequent choral music:
the veneration of Bach and the use of
Bach’s motet structures, use of chorales
and neo-baroque contrapuntal movements
mixed with movements of pure melodic
beauty; flexibility as to language and
Christian denomination.
Mendelssohn’s family
were of Jewish origin and had converted
to Protestantism, but Mendelssohn was
not dogmatic when it came to writing
sacred music. His oeuvre includes Latin
settings, German settings suitable for
use in Lutheran Germany as well as a
group of settings suitable for use in
the Anglican Church. These Op. 23 choruses,
for instance, set two German Psalms
and a Latin Ave Maria.
The Op. 23 choruses
are the first items on a new disc of
Mendelssohn’s sacred choral music from
David Hill and the Choir of St. John’s
College, Cambridge. The first chorus,
Aus Tiefer Not, uses the multi-movement
texture of Bach’s motets. Mendelssohn
opens with a chorale followed by a fugue.
Only in the central movement, with its
tenor solo, does he relax and give us
music reminiscent of one of his songs
without words. The second motet of the
group, Ave Maria, is justly famous
for its lyric beauty and the third Mitten
wir in Leben sind for its austerity
and emotive power.
The archaic nature
of much of this material seems to suit
the tone quality and performance style
of St. John’s. David Hill brings all
of his experience with earlier repertoire
to bear on Mendelssohn’s Bach-inspired
music. He is not particularly interventionist
and dynamics are often terraced, with
crisp, rhythmic articulation. The up-front
nature of the choir’s sound tends to
suit the more archaic pieces. But in
the more melodic sections, I wondered
whether the performance could have been
more relaxed.
Mendelssohn’s choral
music is an important link between that
of his classical predecessors and Brahms’s
substantial oeuvre of sacred music.
And both revered Bach and used his influence
in their choral music. But Mendelssohn’s
sacred choral music is generally more
admired than loved, with only one or
two pieces gaining regular currency,
notably the Op. 23 Ave Maria
and his setting of an adaptation of
Psalm 55, Hör mein Bitten,
better known in its English version
Hear my prayer
St. John’s follow the
Op. 23 choruses with Hör mein
Bitten sung in German. The soloist,
Quintin Beer, has an attractive, forward
sound and the performance is quite robust.
It is here that things start to get
interesting, because Richard Marlow
and the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge
have also issued their own disc of Mendelssohn’s
sacred choral music on the Chandos label,
using women on the upper two lines.
Marlow and Trinity
include the English version, Hear
my prayer, on their disc and the
Trinity sopranos manage to give St.
John’s trebles a run for their money
in the ethereal stakes. But Marlow takes
a more romantic view of Mendelssohn’s
music than Hill. Marlow explicitly shapes
the music, getting the choir to produce
an attractive romantic blend. In Hear
my prayer Trinity’s soprano soloist,
Rachel Bennett, is softer toned
and better phrased than Quintin Beer,
but Beer’s voice is simply more thrilling.
In all of the pieces
that these discs have in common, Marlow
and his choir veer towards a more romantic,
shapely interpretation; quite often
their approach feels lighter than Hill
and St. John’s.
The less romantic sound
of St. John’s choir is appealing nonetheless.
In the two choruses from Mendelssohn’s
Op. 78, Warum toben die Heiden
and Richte mich, Gott, St. John’s
really point up the archaic nature of
Mendelssohn’s inspiration. But though
these choruses are constructed in a
similar manner to Op. 23, no. 1, they
were written thirteen years later and
are amongst his most ambitious. In them
he manages to do much more than copy
his baroque models, using impressive
contrasts of blocks of vocal colour,
shifting the tonal balance from 8-part
chorus to individual voices.
Trinity on their disc
include all three of these choruses
and there is much to commend Marlow’s
more romantic approach and the beautifully
shaped phrases of the choir. I did think
it a shame that St. Johns could not
have found time and space to record
the third of the motets.
In 1846 Mendelssohn
intended to produce a sequence of liturgical
movements for use by the choir of the
Domkirche in Berlin. He never finished
them and we have just the Kyrie,
Heilig (Sanctus) and Ehre
Sei Gott (Gloria). They are
masterly pieces and deserve to be better
known. St. Johns give a fine performance
of them, one which brings out the echoes
of earlier masses in the music.
Rather neatly - and
perhaps bravely - St. John’s conclude
with the English version of the final
section of Hör mein Bitten,
Hear my prayer. The soloist is again
Quintin Beer and he sings eloquently
whilst not eclipsing previous trebles
in this piece.
It is perhaps unfortunate
that the Trinity and St. John’s discs
have appeared at the same time. They
have significant number of works in
common. Given Mendelssohn’s ample number
of sacred pieces it is a shame that
duplication could not have been reduced
or avoided, but if you look at the recording
dates, these two discs were recorded
five years apart with the Trinity disc
being recorded in 2000 and sitting in
the Chandos vaults until now.
Hill’s approach is
pretty different to Marlow’s, so in
an ideal world we would want to buy
both. If the choice is just one then
your attitude to boys versus women on
the top line (and counter-tenors versus
mezzo-sopranos on the second line) might
have a bearing on the issue. On the
basis of repertoire, I think I probably
veer towards the Trinity disc, particularly
as they include all of the Op. 78 pieces
as well as the Op. 79 Sechs Sprüche.
But, if the repertoire
on this disc appeals, you won’t go far
wrong. This might not be quite vintage
St. John’s College Choir but the set
is impressive nonetheless and there
is something quite thrilling, hearing
the trebles singing Mendelssohn’s lovely
vocal lines.
Robert Hugill
Quintin Beer (treble) 
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