Mendelssohn: Paul

Contemporaries of Felix Mendelssohn saw him primarily as the most important composer of Protestant church music in 19th century Germany. And this despite the fact that he had switched from the Jewish to the Christian religion at the age of seven. He was much more than the man of the Scottish Symphony and the famous Violin Concerto. Mendelssohn left behind almost seventy sacred choral works. From simple choral settings to monumental oratorios such as Paul and Elias, which, like Handel's oratorios, were not written for the church but for the concert hall. Mendelssohn wrote down the life story of the apostle Paul in his oratorio Paulus in 1835. It earned him his international breakthrough and the title 'successor to Handel.