Mendelssohn: Aria & Chorus from Elijah | Nancy Argenta and Herbert Bloms...

The aria Hear Ye, Israel and the chorus Be Not Afraid from the oratorio Elijah, Op. 70 (MWV A 25) by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy are performed by Nancy Argenta (soprano), the Gewandhaus Choir and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. These two gems from Mendelssohn's Elijah (German: Elias) were part of a memorial concert in 1999 at St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Two excerpts from Elijah (Elias): (00:00) XXI. Aria: Hear Ye, Israel! (Höre, Israel, höre des Herrn Stimme!) (05:52) XXII. Chorus: Be Not Afraid, saith God the Lord (Fürchte dich nicht, spricht unser Gott) Nancy Argenta, soprano Gewandhaus Choir Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra Herbert Blomstedt, conductor St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig, 1999 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809 - 1847) had already planned to compose an oratorio on Elijah, the great prophet from the Old Testament, in 1836. However, this project was only completed after Mendelssohn received an invitation in the summer of 1845 to compose a new oratorio for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival. The score was not completed until mid-August 1846, and the first performance took place a good two weeks later under the baton of the composer himself. It was one of his greatest triumphs. However, only a few days later he began to rewrite the hastily completed work. The two excerpts chosen for this concert follow each other at the beginning of Part 2 in the Elijah oratorio. The three-part soprano aria Hear Ye, Israel, which is one of the most appealing pieces of the great oratorio, exhorts people to believe and invokes trust in God. Together with the choir's Be not Afraid, this creates a unity of meaning that is directly linked to the occasion of the concert: The performance took place at a commemorative concert held on October 9, 1999, exactly ten years after the Monday Demonstration, when on October 9, 1989, some 70,000 citizens overcame their fear of the authoritarian regime to demonstrate for freedom and democracy in Leipzig – the second largest city in the former East Germany. The peaceful, large-scale demonstration is considered a key historical moment which, in combination with other events, led to the fall of the Wall a month later, on November 9, 1989.