The summer concerts of Bristol and Gloucester Choral Societies were nearly two months apart, but both include settings of this text. First up was Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Gloucester (where it was assigned to the Cathedral choir, singing ‘offstage’ in the quire). Our performance was ably accompanied on the organ.
The Dream of Elijah, by Peter Brandl (National Gallery, Prague)
I last sang this in the Three Choirs Festival in 2016 and I can admit now that it was the weak link in my performances that week; I didn’t give it as much attention as other unfamiliar works and there are an awful lot of notes in it. I did my best to iron out the mistakes this time round, but they don’t all stick in the memory very well. On the other hand it has been a bread-and-butter piece in the Three Choirs Festival for many years so I was surrounded by people who knew the work better than me.
I still feel that it would benefit from some discreet cuts and though some passages were pointed out to us as ‘sometimes cut’, the three performances I’ve given were all complete. Comparing it with the biblical story, I sense a struggle to cast it into an oratorio form, with some episodes treated at length and then a chorus near the end giving a brief whizz through all the things Elijah did which couldn’t be fitted in. So my verdict on Elijah is that I wouldn’t want it to regain the huge popularity it used to have, but the neglect it had in the late 20th century was also unfair. Some day I ought to find a chance to sing St. Paul.