Elijah, Op. 70

Elijah unfolds in two parts, telling the biblical story of the prophet who confronts the worship of Baal and calls down drought, fire, and rain by the power of his faith.

Part one opens with Elijah's curse of drought spoken over an orchestral silence, then moves through the people's suffering, a widow whose son Elijah revives, and the famous contest on Mount Carmel, where the prophets of Baal cry out unanswered while Elijah's prayer is answered by fire from heaven, driving the chorus into one of the score's most exciting outbursts.

Part two follows Elijah into despair and flight into the wilderness, where he sits alone under a tree wishing to die. The tenor aria "If with all your hearts" and Elijah's own "It is enough" are quiet, personal moments before the drama widens again. Mendelssohn then gives Elijah a vision of God passing by, not in wind, earthquake, or fire, but in a "still small voice," sung with hushed calm after loud orchestral depictions of each natural force. The oratorio closes with Elijah's ascent to heaven in a whirlwind and a final sequence of choruses celebrating faith and looking toward a promised future, ending in a burst of praise.

Mendelssohn had wanted to write a biblical oratorio on Elijah for years before completing it for the Birmingham Festival in England, where he had built a strong following through earlier visits. He worked closely with librettist William Bartholomew, shaping English texts drawn from the books of Kings and other scripture. The premiere took place in Birmingham on August 26, 1846, with Mendelssohn conducting, and it was an immediate success, with several movements encored on the spot. He revised the score afterward, and this revised version was performed in London in 1847. Elijah quickly became a staple of British and American choral societies, valued for its combination of dramatic storytelling and large-scale choral writing in the tradition of Handel, whose oratorios Mendelssohn deeply admired. It remains one of the most frequently performed oratorios in the English-speaking choral repertoire.