Felix Mendelssohn brought Bach's St Matthew Passion back

Person: Felix Mendelssohn
Lived: 1809–1847
Field: Music
From: German

The story

When Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750, much of his music fell out of use. His St Matthew Passion, composed in 1727 for double choir and double orchestra, continued to be performed there for a few decades, but by the early nineteenth century it had been almost forgotten. In Berlin, however, Bach's music still had admirers. Mendelssohn's aunt Sarah Levy had collected Bach family manuscripts, and his teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter, head of the Berlin Singakademie, owned Bach scores but was reluctant to perform them in public. As a teenager, Felix received a copy of the score of the St Matthew Passion from his grandmother, Bella Salomon.

In 1827 Mendelssohn and a few friends began meeting weekly to rehearse the Passion. Among them was Eduard Devrient, a leading baritone at the Berlin Royal Opera. Around the turn of 1829 Devrient persuaded Mendelssohn that they should ask Zelter to let the Singakademie take on the project. Zelter was reluctant but finally agreed.

Mendelssohn prepared a version suited to the taste of his time, cutting about a third of the arias and half of the choruses while keeping most of the chorales, which heightened the drama of the story. The 20-year-old conducted the rehearsals himself. The first performance, on 11 March 1829, was sold out; so was a second on 21 March, and Zelter conducted a third in April. Devrient sang the part of Jesus.

The concert was a sensation. It was one of very few performances since Bach's death and the first ever outside Leipzig. Performances soon followed in Frankfurt, Breslau and Stettin, and the event became the central moment in the revival of Bach's music in Germany and eventually throughout Europe. Mendelssohn, grandson of the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, remarked wryly that it had taken an actor and a Jew's son to revive the greatest Christian music for the world.

Mendelssohn continued to champion Bach for the rest of his life, bringing his organ music back into the repertoire and later funding a Bach monument in Leipzig. Today the St Matthew Passion is regarded as one of the supreme achievements of Western music and is performed in concert halls and churches around the world.