Composers under the influence… Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Frank Martin

On 28 July 1750, the final curtain fell: the Kantor of St Thomas’s Church Leipzig breathed his last. Only a few years later, there remained but little trace of his passage: a number of autograph scores dispersed between his composer sons at his death, a very few printed works (essentially instrumental), but also the testimony of his children and of his numerous pupils, colleagues or disciples.

The return to the past that was a mark of early Romanticism, and then the Cecilian movement which began to take shape in the 1830s, created a favourable environment for the performance of the St Matthew Passion by Mendelssohn, followed by the creation of the Bach-Gesellschaft which aimed to produce a complete critical edition of all Bach’s works.

Mendelssohn spent five years in careful study of the works available to him before starting preparations for his performance of the Passion in 1829. Such was its impact that Berlioz was to remark: ‘There is only one God in Leipzig: it is Bach, and Mendelssohn is his prophet.’

A monumental study of Bach was published by the musicologist Spitta at the same time as one of his friends, Brahms, was immersed in study of the works of the Leipzig master. Brahms added to his talents as a composer those of a choirmaster who often included Bach motets, cantatas and oratorios in his programmes.

The experience of hearing the St Matthew Passion at the age of twelve was to mark Frank Martin for his entire creative existence, as may be seen in his Mass for double choir, begun in 1922, completed in 1926, but first performed only in 1963. This work of an extraordinary emotional intensity employs the resources of ‘early music’: antiphony, plainchant, counterpoint, and declamation.