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Show Cedar City Musicians Combine Talents to Present Famous Oratorio "Elijah," a dramatic oratorio, t will be presented to the public on Sunday evening, May 2, by a select group of Cedar City musicians, musi-cians, who have been working! diligently for the past three: months to master the difficult masterpiece. Felix Mendelssohn was the composer of the world-famous oratorio. He was a composer of such note that his versatile abilities abili-ties dominted the musical taste of Germany during his life, and of England for a generation or more after his death, which occurred oc-curred on Nov. 4, 1817. He occupied occu-pied a position in the cultural world of an eminence equalled by no musician before him and rivalled by few since. lie was "kapellmeister" to the King of Prussia, director of the Leipszig Conservatory, conductor of the important Gewandhaus concerts in Leipzig, and friend and mentor men-tor of such fellow-artists as Liszt, Schumann, Chopin, Berlioz, and many more. Yet he was only 38 years old at the time of his death. Loved by England Nowhere, apart from his native na-tive Germany, did Mendelssohn's fame burn more spectacularly than in England. From the moment mo-ment Felix, then a 20-year-old youth, paid that country his first visit, England took the young composer to its heart with an enthusiasm equalling the reception recep-tion it had accorded another famous German musician, Handel, Han-del, a century earlier. Time anil again, he was received by Queen Victoria and tfie Prince Consort. And Mendelssohn loved England as England loved him. It was not surprising, then, that on June 11, IS an English Eng-lish organization, the committee of the Birmingham Musical Festival, Fes-tival, asked Mendelssohn k compose com-pose a new oratorio for its 181(5 festival. He accepted the assignment assign-ment and immediately he plunged plung-ed into work on the oratorio "Elijah," which he had already begun. Tumultous Reception The first performance took place in the Birmingham Town Hall on the morning of Aug. 2li, 181(5. The music was tumultuous-ly tumultuous-ly received. Mendelssohn conducted con-ducted four more performances of his new oratorio. One was attended at-tended by Queen Victoria and her husband. After the performance perform-ance the composer was handed a dedication from the Prince Consort Con-sort which read: "To the- noble artist, who surrounded sur-rounded by the Baal-worship of debased art, has been able by his genius and science to preserve pre-serve faithfully, like another Elijah, Eli-jah, the worship of true art, and once more to accustom our ears, amid the whirl of empty frivolous frivol-ous sounds, to the pure tones of sympathetic feeling and legitimate legiti-mate harmony: to the great Master, who makes us conscious of the unity of his whispering to the mighty raging of the elements. ele-ments. Inscribed in grateful remembrance re-membrance by Albert." |
