Philadelphia Singers discover Mendelssohn's sister

Fanny Mendelssohn displayed a formidable musical talent when she was still a young child. She wrote her first composition when she was 12. Her family could have given her the same kind of support they provided to her brother Felix.

But Fanny's father shared his society's views on the proper role of women. Music could become Felix's profession, he told her in a famous letter. For Fanny, it could only be an ornament.

Fortunately, Fanny married the painter Wilhelm Hensel, who let her fulfill some of her potential. In addition to raising a son and presiding over a salon, as a proper woman should, Fanny composed more than 450 pieces.

She concentrated on songs, piano pieces and other forms that didn't require large-scale public performances. Perhaps as a consequence, most of her output remained unpublished when she died in 1847.

I first encountered Fanny Mendelssohn's work 15 years ago, when a group called the Hildegard Chamber Players presented a concert series devoted to women composers. Their performance of four of Fanny's songs convinced me that German lieder fans would miss an opportunity if they failed to add some of her songs to the standard lieder repertoire.

Stormier and angrier

At their latest outing, the Philadelphia Singers presented the Philadelphia premiere of Fanny Mendelssohn's Job (Hiob in German), a short choral piece that manages to pack plenty of music and emotion into three economical movements.

The opening movement, "What is man that You magnify him," begins with a light, racing choral passage that resembles "All we like sheep" in Handel's Messiah. The music colors the words with that same sense of human shallowness. But the setting grows stormier and angrier as it finishes the question with the complaint that God also tests us every moment.

The second movement, "Why do you hide your face?", switches to somber, darkly operatic scene painting. For the third movement, which is essentially a Praise the Lord finish, Fanny Hensel brings out the trumpets and produces a big, whirling climax that proves she could do that kind of thing about as well as most of the well-known male composers who've roused audiences for centuries.

The Singers premiered Job in a concert that opened with Felix Mendelssohn's Magnificat and ended with Bach's setting of the same text. It was an inspired idea for a program: a concert that paired Bach with the composer who launched the Bach revival in the 19th Century.

The Singers gave the event a royal treatment. The orchestra assembled for the evening included Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia stalwarts like violinist Mei Chen Liao Barnes, oboist Geoffrey Deemer and timpanist Martha Hitchins. The free-lancers included flutist Mimi Stillman and cellist Vivian Barton Dozor, who is one of our leading regional experts in the all-important art of accompanying Baroque arias.

Seizing opportunity

The text for the Magnificat could have been created by a composer looking for a sure-fire hit. It begins with the appealing picture of the young woman accepting her destiny and ends with two opportunities for a big climax: a salute to the power of the Lord and a concluding Gloria Patri. Mendelssohn and Bach both knew how to seize a good opportunity when they saw it, and conductor David Hayes maximized the effect of their efforts when he reversed the historical order and led with the Mendelssohn.

The Bach is obviously the better of the two pieces (as both Mendelssohns would undoubtedly agree). It's more inventive and it showcases Bach's talent for arias that accompany the vocal line with a perfectly chosen solo instrument.

It's also guaranteed to send everybody home with a glow. Nobody did the big finish like Bach. He even knew when to give the trumpets a temporary rest and throw in a little interlude for chorus and flutes.

Choral exultation

By comparison, Mendelssohn's Magnificat may feel lighter and less complex, but it started the evening with a flow of choral exultation. Frank Mitchell colored the Fecit Potentiam ("He has shown the power of his arm") with a strong flowing bass; soprano Carole Latimer and mezzo Nancy Trauger contributed a beautifully blended duet; and Steven Williamson added a strong tenor to the interplay of chorus and soloists in the Gloria Patri.

The Bach includes more solos than the Mendelssohn and gives the soloists more to work with. I was particularly impressed with the purity of Margaret Leone's soprano aria and the strength of Leslie Johnson's. When it came time to remind the congregation that the Lord has put down the mighty from their seats, Kenneth Garner proclaimed the word with a strong, colorful tenor and included plenty of Baroque ornaments, as all properly accredited spokesman for the Deity are supposed to.