Humboldt cantata

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The Humboldt Cantata ( MWV D 2 ), original title: Welcome , is a secular choral work by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy for male choir and orchestra . The work was composed in 1828 on behalf of Alexander von Humboldt for the Naturforscherkongress in Berlin and premiered at its opening in the concert hall of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin under the direction of the composer. The text comes from Ludwig Rellstab .

structure

With only 2 clarinets, 2 trumpets, 2 horns, low strings and timpani, Mendelssohn required an unusual orchestral line-up and dispensed with high register parts such as flutes, oboes or violins. The choir consists of a four-part male choir with four soloists.

The approximately 25-minute cantata is divided into seven numbers:

  • No. 1: Welcome! (Solo quartet and choir) - followed by a recitative and arioso (bass solo)
  • No. 2: Loud fury rages in the wild fight (chorus)
  • No. 3: stop! (Recitative tenor solo)
  • No. 4: The wonderful clarity of the light breaks (tenor solo)
  • No. 5: Act now and create (duet and choir)
  • No. 6: And like the big building (recitative bass solo)
  • No. 7: Yes, bless, Lord (Chorale and Choral Fugue)

reception

The premiere was the only one during Mendelssohn's lifetime; it was not until 1930 that the cantata was performed again at the 91st Natural Research Congress in Königsberg , after which the score was printed by Breitkopf & Härtel . However, the work continued to go unnoticed; In 1959, on the 100th anniversary of Humboldt's death in the GDR government, it sounded again in a text version adjusted for the stasis by the radio choir and orchestra under Helmut Koch .

In 2006, the now insolvent music publisher Saier & Hug published a historical-critical new edition of the score and a piano reduction. In 2009 the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly was the first professional orchestra to record the cantata, but the recording remained unpublished. Nevertheless, the work has been performed more and more in recent years. a. with premieres in Poland (April 3, 2009, National Symphony Orchestra of Polish Radio ), the USA (October 16, 2004, CUNY Graduate Center ) and Switzerland (November 17, 2012, St. Johann Basel men's choir).

literature

  • Karl Schönewolf: "Mendelssohn's Humboldt-Cantate", in: Musik und Gesellschaft , 9/1959, p. 410.
  • R. Larry Todd: "Humboldt, Mendelssohn and Musical Unity", in: Alexander von Humboldt. From the Americas to the Cosmos , ed. by Raymond Erickson, Mauricio A. Font, Brian Schwartz, New York 2005.
  • Manfred Osten: "The lake of Valencia. Alexander von Humboldt as a pioneer of the environmental movement", in: Frankfurter Hefte , 5/2009, p. 74.
  • Damien Ehrhardt: "Alexander von Humboldt et la musique", in: Le Soi et le Cosmos d'Alexander von Humboldt à nos jours , ed. by Soraya Nour Sckell and Damien Ehrhardt, Berlin 2015, pp. 101–110.

swell

  1. ↑ Riccardo Chailly's biography at Klassikakzente.de
  2. ↑ Beethoven Easter Festival: Program April 3, 2009 ( Memento of the original from November 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.beethoven.org.pl
  3. ↑ CUNY - Humboldt Festival 2004
  4. ^ David Wohnlich: "Humboldt instead of Alperösli", in: Basler Zeitung , 170/315, December 17, 2012, p. 18.

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