Lift Thine Eyes -

Lift Thine Eyes is an oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn. It premiered in 1846 at the Birmingham Festival. It depicts events in the life of the Biblical prophet Elijah, taken from the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings of the Old Testament.
Lift thine eyes,
O lift thine eyes to the mountains,
whence cometh help
Thy help cometh from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth
He hath said,
thy foot shall not be moved.
Thy Keeper will never slumber
This piece was composed in the spirit of Mendelssohn's Baroque predecessors Bach and Handel, whose music he loved. In 1829 Mendelssohn had organized the first performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion since the composer's death and was instrumental in bringing this and other Bach works to widespread popularity. By contrast, Handel's oratorios never went out of fashion in England. Mendelssohn prepared a scholarly edition of some of Handel's oratorios for publication in London. Elijah is modelled on the oratorios of these two Baroque masters; however, in its lyricism and use of orchestral and choral colour the style clearly reflects Mendelssohn's own genius as an early Romantic composer.
The work is scored for four vocal soloists (bass-baritone, tenor, alto, soprano), full symphony orchestra including trombones, ophicleide, organ, and a large chorus singing usually in four, but occasionally eight parts. The title role is for bass-baritone and was sung at the premiere by the Austrian bass Joseph Staudigl.
Mendelssohn had discussed an oratorio based on Elijah in the late 1830s with his friend Karl Klingemann, who had provided him with the libretto for his comic operetta Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde, which resulted in a partial text that Klingemann was unable to finish. Mendelssohn then turned to Julius Schubring (de), the librettist for his earlier oratorio St. Paul, who quickly abandoned Klingemann's work and produced his own text that combined the story of Elijah as told in the Book of Kings with psalms. In 1845, the Birmingham Festivalcommissioned an oratorio from Mendelssohn, who worked with Schubring to put the text in final form and in 1845 and 1846 composed his oratorio to the German and English texts in parallel, taking care to change musical phrases to suit the rhythms and stresses of the translation by William Bartholomew, a chemist who was also an experienced amateur poet and composer.
The oratorio was first performed on 26 August 1846 at Birmingham Town Hall in its English version, conducted by the composer, and it was immediately acclaimed a classic of the genre. As The Times critic wrote: 'Never was there a more complete triumph - never a more thorough and speedy recognition of a great work of art'. Notwithstanding the work's triumph, Mendelssohn revised his oratorio wholesale before another group of performances in London in April 1847 - one (23 April) in the presence of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The German version was first performed on the composer's birthday, 3 February 1848, in Leipzig, a few months after Mendelssohn's death, under the baton of the composer Niels Wilhelm Gade.
Mendelssohn uses biblical episodes relating to Elijah, which in the original, 1 Kings 17:19 and 2 Kings 2:1, are narrated in rather laconic form, to produce intensely dramatic scenes, by adding several related biblical texts, mostly taken from the Old Testament. These were doubtless well fitted to the taste of Mendelssohn's time, and a Victorian sentimentality also seems detectable in places.
Among the episodes is the resurrection of a dead youth. A dramatic episode is the contest of the gods, in which Jehovah consumes an offered sacrifice in a column of fire, while a sequence of increasingly frantic prayers by the prophets of the god Baal failed. Part I is concluded by the bringing of rain to parched Israel through Elijah's prayers. Part II depicts the prosecution of Elijah by Queen Jezebel, his retirement to the desert, his vision of God appearing, his return to his work, and his ascension on a fiery chariot into heaven. The work ends with prophecies and praise.
The work in two parts opens with a declamation by Elijah, after which the overture is played. The sections are listed in the following table, with the text in both German and English, a biblical source for the passage (the dramatic action highlighted by a background colour), and the voices. The choir is mostly four-part SATB, but up to eight parts. The soloists are Elijah (baritone); soprano (S), often also singing the Widow, the Youth and Angel II; alto (A), often also singing Angel I and the Queen; and tenor (T), often also singing the parts of Obadiah and Ahab. Mendelssohn counted on several soloists, requesting Soprano I and II in movement 2, additionally Alto I and II in movements 7 and 35 and Tenor and Bass I and II also in movement 7, but the work is often performed with four soloists.