Page:The history of Mendelssohn's oratorio 'Elijah'.djvu/127

 THE REVISED ORATORIO.

��seriatim ; they lead up to the period of the composer's arrival — for the last time — in England.

" Leipzig, 30 December, 1846.

" My dear Sir, — I send to-day to Mr, Buxton all the pieces which were still wanting in the first part of my ' Elijah.' Wherever I could, I took the words from the English Bible and adapted them as well as I could to the alterations, in order to save you trouble ; but, nevertheless, I must ask you to look over all I have done, that no wrong accent or other blunders might remain in it. So, for instance, in the 13 bars which I have added before the chorus Psalm cxvi. [12] and Deuteron. vi., 15 [5], I wrote the German words under the English in case you should prefer the notation as originally composed, and choose to add a word or a syllable here and there in the English version, in order to give it the same rhythm as in German. I should wish this in the passage just quoted, particularly in the beginning of Elijah's answer, ' Du sollst den,' where the two slurred notes * Thou J shalt ' are not equally good. But I could not find something else, and I also think that passages like these are best left as in the Bible. In the following chorus. No. g, there is a curious specimen of the different meaning of the German and English version : the words ' He is gracious,' &c. (or, as you had it, ^ they are gracious'), apply, in your version, to the righteous, while in ours they apply to God, and the passage is in our version, 'the light ariseth to the righteous from Him who is gracious,
 * Blessed are the men,' and which are taken from

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