Hensel, Mayer – Licht im Schatte

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy with the International Bach Academy at the Liederhalle Stuttgart

Program

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
"Mitten wir im Leben sind" MWV B 21, op. 23 No. 3
Emilie Mayer
Symphony No. 7 in F minor
Fanny Hensel
Overture in C
Oratorio based on images from the Bible

Music against all odds... Felix Mendelssohn wrote the following about his chorale motet "Mitten wir im Leben sind": "If it resembles Seb. Bach, then again I can't help it, because I wrote it as I felt like it." Obviously, because the previous year (1829) Mendelssohn had performed J. S. Bach's forgotten St. Matthew Passion again. Bach also fascinated his talented sister, Fanny Hensel, who shortly afterwards composed a moving oratorio following a cholera epidemic - enlightening music for dark events that are not unfamiliar to us! His dramatic transformation unfolds strongly contrasting world views between lamentation and consolation and reaches its climax in the eight-part funeral chorus and the following choir of the blessed. The determined Emilie Mayer also set herself against the male domain and again devoted herself to the symphonic genre. Her 7th Symphony bears witness to her love of experimentation and personal expressiveness. With a magnificent cast, we give these women the worthy place they deserve and present their music in a new light.