Stour Music 2025: Mendelssohn and the Bachs

Johann Michael Bach – Halt, was du hast & Unser Leben waehret siebenzig Jahre
J.C./J.S.Bach – Ich lasse dich nicht
Mendelssohn – Hebrides Overture & Magnificat in D
S.S Wesley – Ascribe unto the Lord
Mendelssohn – Psalm 114 Da Israel aus Aegypten zog

It’s hard to realise just how popular and influential Mendelssohn’s music was in 19th-century England - but how little of it is now performed.  The dramatic choral cantata ‘When Israel came out of Egypt’ is rarely heard but a tour de force as descriptive as the Hebrides Overture.  Magnificat, though, reminds us of his debt to generations of Bachs as he grew up in Berlin, so we also offer well-known tunes in arrangements by Johann Christoph and Johann Michael Bach.  Mendelssohn’s own influence can be heard in the music of S.S.Wesley, a guilty pleasure of mine since the age of nine. The full orchestrated version of one of his greatest anthems is a feast! Robert Hollingworth