Page:The history of Mendelssohn's oratorio 'Elijah'.djvu/17

 THE HISTORY OF MENDELSSOHN'S "ELIJAH."

��CHAPTER I.

��THE LIBRETTO.

Mendelssohn had no sooner completed his first oratorio, " St. Paul," than he began to think about setting another Bible story to music. " St. Paul " was produced at the Lower Rhine Musical Festival, Diisseldorf, May 22, 1836, under the composer's personal direction. Mendelssohn was then twenty- seven years of age. He spent six weeks in the summer of that year at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, as loctmi tenens for his friend Schelble, the founder of a Choral Society, famous then and now, under the name of the Cacilien-Verein.

During his temporary residence in the old Hanseatic city, Mendelssohn met Mdlle. Cecile Jeanrenaud, to whom he was betrothed in September. He spent the month of August at Scheveningen for the benefit of the sea-bathing there, and also, as we ( I )

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