Mendelssohn: Sacred Choral Works

This new album by the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Klava – recently hailed by the New York Times as ‘astonishing’, ‘superlative’ by the BBC Music Magazine, and ‘perhaps the finest chorus singing today’ by NPR – is focused on the sacred choral works by one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847).

Although the young Felix Mendelssohn was not brought up in any faith until the age of seven, when he was baptised into the Reform Christian Church in Berlin, Christian traditions were featured large in his creative make-up. Writing sacred choral works was, after all, a very natural choice to Mendelssohn, the man who did so much to champion the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and who had also re-discovered his St Matthew Passion. Already in 1821 – when he was aged just 12 – he embarked on a series of Psalm settings, and the composer’s choral writing would soon outstrip these early, immature efforts on the largest scale with St Paul (1836), Elijah (1846), and Die erste Walpurgisnacht (1831–43). Particularly in the ?nal decade of his life Mendelssohn returned to writing unaccompanied choral works, and it is from the 1840s that most of the works featured in this collection were composed, when the composer was already ailing with what would prove his ?nal, fatal illness.

The biggest works in the album are the Sechs Sprüche (1843–46), with each anthem themed to a speci?c feast day of the year, and the Three Psalms (1843–45). This recording of the Psalms also includes the world première recording of Ehre sei dem Vater published by Carus Verlag in 1997.