and 1832 – from the ages of 18 to 23. Besides the fact that these works represent perhaps the most striking examples of the musical influence of Johann Sebastian Bach in Mendelssohn’s entire oeuvre, the writing of the majority of the pieces coincided with the composer’s two years of travels in Europe, begun in May 1830, which took him – among other places – to Dessau, Leipzig, Weimar, Munich, Vienna, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome and Paris. Of the influence of Bach, Mendelssohn himself confessed in a letter to Eduard Devrient written in 1831: “If [my works] have a certain similarity to those of Sebastian Bach, again, I cannot do anything about it, for I wrote them just according to the mood I was in, and even if the words put me in a mood similar to that of old Bach, so much the better. I am sure you do not think that I would merely copy his forms, without the content; if it were so, I should feel such distaste, and such emptiness, that I could never again finish a piece.”
On his aforementioned tour of Europe, while staying in Vienna, Mendelssohn received a collection of Lutheran hymns as a gift from his friend, the baritone Franz Hauser, of which he made mention in his diary. Sadly this volume has not survived so we cannot know exactly which hymns it contained, but in all likelihood the collection contained hymns not only by Martin Luther, but by other important German Lutheran chorale composers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Scholars attribute a vitally important role to Hauser’s gift: it was probably to thank his friend for the inspiration the volume provided that Mendelssohn assigned the biggest singing role outside the chorus to the baritone soloist in the eight chorale cantatas.
For me these chorale cantatas make up one of the most interesting programmes of my career so far. I would be so bold to risk stating that at the age of twenty Mendelssohn even “surpassed” his great model Bach, in the sense that at this age perhaps even Johann Sebastian had not attained the astonishing standard as a composer which radiates from the score of these chorale cantatas – although it is also true that Mendelssohn was to be granted a far shorter life. (György Vashegyi)

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