Felix Mendelssohn’s Religious Hybridity Revealed Through His Oratorios

Abstract

Over the course of the last century, scholars and musicologists have debated the piety of Felix Mendelssohn. It is plausible to argue that Mendelssohn was purely Jewish, and that his musical contributions to the liturgy of the Christian Church are merely a consequence of cultural pressure and widespread Anti-Semitism. However, it is also conceivable that Mendelssohn not only embraced the Christian tradition for himself, but also endeavoured to reform its theology and doctrine. How then, should we understand Mendelssohn’s faith? Given that the oratorio functions as a vehicle for religious expression, I employ three of Mendelssohn’s most widely discussed oratorios as the main subjects of the paper’s investigation. By analyzing the text, musical characteristics, and historical context of Mendelssohn’s St. Matthew Passion, Paulus, and Elias, I explore the ways in which Mendelssohn was deeply and inwardly conflicted with his faith. Moreover, such oratorios illustrate how Mendelssohn’s religious discernment was a non-linear evolutionary process; by the time Mendelssohn composed Elias (1846), his trajectory of religious discernment culminated in the reconciliation of both the Jewish and Christian aspects of his identity. While Mendelssohn’s music narrates the ancient Judeo-Christian story, it also simultaneously exposes his own account of religious polarization and the subsequent desire for harmonization.