Jesu meine freude mendelssohn bartholdy biography
Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr!
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.
Jesu meine freude mendelssohn bartholdy biography
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 so