Felix Mendelssohn was a German Jewish composer, pianist, and conductor. He was born into a wealthy family in Hamburg, Germany. He is grandson of the famous philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn was one of the most typical figures in Romantic Period. As a child who was influenced deeply by his grandpa, Mendelssohn has unique view of religion. His composition style is graceful and refined; the lyricism with his idiographic understanding of the Bible not only made him known as a Romantic pioneer, but also acclaimed as the Baroque and the Classical Traditions true successor. Turning to his works, I would say Paulus is one of his masterpiece.
Paulus, as Mendelssohn’s first oratorio, may not be as famous as his later oratorios Elijah or The songs without words. However, it is truly a great experiment of a serious religious story and innovative musical composing. It shows people how sincere he believes in God and how energetic he repays his musical gift to God. The oratorio describes Paul's conversion to Christianity as depicted in Acts of the New Testament. As one of the most touching sections of the Holy Bible, Mendelssohn wants to combine all the great elements and details to produce the story musically. He is using the power of the melodies to convulse audiences how Paul’s conversion dramatically changed his life.This motivation reflects how important the story enlighten Mendelssohn himself.
Mendelssohn began Paulus in 1834. Part one is the introduction, beginning with the martyrdom of Saint Stephen. This section describes how merciless Paul was, and all the treasonous actions he did before his conversion and baptism, which ends the first part. The second part presents how he reacts to the world after he was saved. Mendelssohn chooses the stories of “The resistance of the Jews and heathen,” “The healing of the lame man of Lystra,” “Paul's departure from Ephesus” etc. He ends the piece with the Martyrdom of Paul. The opposite sides of Paul’s life gives Mendelssohn the perfect opportunity to show off his talented composing skill. The changes from evil to Holy Spirit, from darkness to brightness, and from sinister to benevolent soul, neither of them can be presented without a great orchestration and the accurate dynamic contrast. However, Mendelssohn prodigiously made it .
The orchestra used in this oratorio is large: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in A, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, organ, timpani, violins, violas, cellos and double basses. With these colors, Mendelssohn sets up an extremely colorful background of this masterpiece. The precise color choosing created beautiful pictures of the graceful scenes, and the forceful brass tone and thunder like timpani sound reinforce the dramatic knavery of Paul.
The overture begins with strings and woodwinds peacefully, as the Holy atmosphere grows; the brass and timpani come in, present the sunrise out of the pretty clouds. The fast motive in the middle of the overture filled by strings express nervous emotion. The jumps of the oboe sound make the uncomfortable pace even more rambling. At the end, the brightness of Holy God take out all the worries, put everything back to normal and ends with a victorious chord. The structure of the overture is quite common in the classical and romantic period. It is kind of compendium, and basically telling audiences how the story goes on. The whole oratorio is filled with chorales between whiles. One hand to express the god-fearing wishes, on the other hand to raise the level of glorious strength. One of Mendelssohn’s finest skill is vocal composing. It acted an important role in this great work. The main character Paul is sang by the bass voice, and Stephen, Ananias and Barnabas sang by tenor. Most of time, the soprano, mezzo soprano and two bass voices mix with the chorus sing as aside; however, soprano got great arias that incredibly illustrate the beauty of the God’s will.
The most touching part of this masterpiece, with no doubt is the Aria Gott, sei mir gnädig nach deiner Güte translated as O, God, have Mercy. This is a solo Aria. The bass voice Paul sings to the God after he converted. The continuos strings played softly, and the chili oboe solos soulfully draws up the beautiful line that flowing on the top., Mendelssohn wisely choses oboe to make a dialogue with Paul. The sweet, soft, and lonely sound of oboe perfectly fits in the scene that gently whispering the repentance. On the surface, it is confession to God; however, it is truly a conversation between two sides of Paul himself. It is the conversation between a sinner and a Saint. This quiet talk shows us Paul has changed completely. The glory of God erased all the sins from his deepest soul. We can easily feel that Mendelssohn spent serious hard work on this Aria even though it is not long. Nevertheless, the accurate color changing and the honest telling tempo made it very clear that Mendelssohn knows exactly how the journey was that Paul has been through.
In my opinion, Mendelssohn is actually putting himself into Paulus. He is somehow describing his own experience of religion. Since he was born into a rich Jewish family, he has to believe in what his family believe in. Dose he really believe in his religion? I don’t think so. As a child, he did not have enough knowledge about religion. That is why he finally believes in God. He must experienced with difficult struggling with both of himself and his family.
Many people think that the oratorio Paulus does not have the weight of Elijah, and some people even compare this piece to Bach and Beethoven’s works, saying it is not profound enough and sounds a little bit childish. Therefore Paulus lost its place in the repertoire and we do not often perform it. I do not completely agree with these opinions. Compare to Bach’s works, Paulus is more about “Pure music.” Most of Bach’s music is written for church. Church music is more serious, because everything is centered by God. I treasure Paulus because it mapped the true understanding to God from Mendelssohn’s heart. The sweetness of being saved by God, the intense inner struggle and the dramatic personality changes reflected how Mendelssohn appreciates all the tests from God. The Paulus was indeed influenced by Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion. The form and the structure inherits Bach’s ideas; nevertheless, it was composed when Mendelssohn was only 21 years old. As a young composer, he just wants to express himself. He combined his own experience and his imagination to create this masterpiece. So I think Paulus contains more emotional elements of human other than particular religion meaning. Besides that, Paulus handily plays a role in church music as well.
I think that is why Mendelssohn had a brilliant life. The Holy blessing guided him all the way to his end, and the success of Paulus was the perfect testimony.
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