motet notes - Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was an enormously talented and versatile composer, conductor and performer. He was the grandson of the famous Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, who strongly promoted Jewish assimilation into German culture and society. Mendelssohn’s father converted the family to the Lutheran faith when Felix was a young boy, adopting the additional surname Bartholdy, which was the name of a family estate.

Surprisingly little attention has been paid to Mendelssohn’s smaller sacred works, on texts associated with the Anglican, Catholic and Lutheran traditions. They include a series of choral cantatas, inspired equally by Mendelssohn’s admiration for the music of Bach (whose St Matthew Passion he famously revived in Berlin in 1829 at the age of 20!) and by his love of Martin Luther’s hymns.

Mendelssohn deliberately chose Bach as his model for his eight chorale cantatas, and "Jesu meine Freude" follows closely Bachian prototypes. Set in one movement, the soprano chorale tune is suspended above a web of imitative counterpoint both in the orchestra and voices.  Composed in E minor, the same as Bach’ setting – BWV 227, the chorale cantata relies on a minor to major shift. About two-thirds of the way the tonality shifts to a sublime E major on the text “Gottes Lamm, mein Bräutigam” (Lamb of God, my bridegroom), giving the chorale tune a fresh harmonic coloration.

Remarking on this influence, Mendelssohn himself confessed in a letter to a friend:  “If there is a resemblance to Bach, I can’t help that, because I have written as I felt the need to, and if the words have led to an association with old Bach, so much the better. I am sure you do not think that I would merely copy his forms, without the content; if it were so, I should feel such distaste, and such emptiness, that I could never again finish a piece."

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