0:00:02 > 0:00:04MUSIC: "Wedding March" by Felix Mendelssohn
0:00:13 > 0:00:16My journey through two centuries of British music and history
0:00:16 > 0:00:18ends in the early Victorian age,
0:00:18 > 0:00:23with a composer who has quietly and modestly burrowed deep
0:00:23 > 0:00:24under our national skin.
0:00:24 > 0:00:27MUSIC: "O For The Wings Of A Dove"
0:00:27 > 0:00:30This giant of musical Romanticism
0:00:30 > 0:00:33was also one of the world's great melodists,
0:00:33 > 0:00:36who wrote some of Britain's best-loved tunes.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39# Hark! the herald angels sing
0:00:39 > 0:00:43# Glory to the newborn King... #
0:00:43 > 0:00:47Once again, this composer came from outside Britain.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49Like Handel, he was German.
0:00:49 > 0:00:51His name was Felix Mendelssohn.
0:00:51 > 0:00:56THEY PLAY: "Wedding March" from "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
0:01:09 > 0:01:12THEY PLAY: Overture to "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
0:01:17 > 0:01:20Mendelssohn first came to London in 1829
0:01:20 > 0:01:22as a precocious 20 year old.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25To complete his fully rounded German education
0:01:25 > 0:01:29he was visiting Britain on the first leg of a European grand tour.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41The great legacy of Haydn's time in London a generation earlier
0:01:41 > 0:01:44was the foundation of the Philharmonic Society,
0:01:44 > 0:01:47which established a regular concert season in Britain's capital,
0:01:47 > 0:01:50and within a few months of Mendelssohn's arrival,
0:01:50 > 0:01:54they arranged for the young composer to present his work to the public.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01The music he conducted included this scintillating overture
0:02:01 > 0:02:05to A Midsummer Night's Dream, written when he was just 17.
0:02:05 > 0:02:10We're performing it for this film with my orchestra of period instruments, Army of Generals,
0:02:10 > 0:02:15in the ornate, Victorian splendour of the livery hall of London's Drapers' Company.
0:02:33 > 0:02:36London was astonished at the young German prodigy.
0:02:36 > 0:02:39But for Mendelssohn, Britain had so much more to offer
0:02:39 > 0:02:41than simply its capital city.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45As one of the first of the new generation of Romantic artists,
0:02:45 > 0:02:49Mendelssohn needed to feed his imagination with experience.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52So after just four months in the capital, he headed north,
0:02:52 > 0:02:57on a journey that was to inspire one of the world's best-loved pieces.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00MUSIC: The Hebrides Overture
0:03:00 > 0:03:04Tucked away in a corner of Oxford's Bodleian Library
0:03:04 > 0:03:06is the composer's own charming record of this trip,
0:03:06 > 0:03:10a series of sketchbooks, some mind-blowingly tiny,
0:03:10 > 0:03:13which paint a vivid and detailed picture of his first British summer.
0:03:17 > 0:03:21Here is a sort of conventional size drawing book,
0:03:21 > 0:03:27- which actually starts off with a few of London.- Extraordinary.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31- It's almost Canaletto. - Yes, it is. There's St Paul's and...
0:03:31 > 0:03:36And then, the rest of the sketchbook records the journey up north.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38So we've got York.
0:03:39 > 0:03:42- Then onwards up to Durham. - That's a very leafy picture!
0:03:42 > 0:03:47Yes, he was always very fond of trees. He drew trees everywhere.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50Then up north, into Scotland.
0:03:57 > 0:03:58Scotland.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02These meticulous sketches are the first impressions of a landscape
0:04:02 > 0:04:06that was to become hugely significant for the young composer.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09Arriving in Oban on the west coast on August 7th,
0:04:09 > 0:04:13he drew what's now become one of his most evocative pictures.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17Standing on just about exactly this spot
0:04:17 > 0:04:19and in just this sort of weather,
0:04:19 > 0:04:21Mendelssohn caught his first glimpse,
0:04:21 > 0:04:25beyond the castle of Dunolly, of that misty, distant grey landmass -
0:04:25 > 0:04:26the Hebrides islands -
0:04:26 > 0:04:30a landscape that was to have such a deep creative impact upon him.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33And that very night, he fired off a letter to his family
0:04:33 > 0:04:35where he said, "In order to make you understand
0:04:35 > 0:04:37"just how much the Hebrides have affected me,
0:04:37 > 0:04:39"I've set down the following."
0:04:39 > 0:04:42And he sketched the first 20 bars of music
0:04:42 > 0:04:45of a piece that was subsequently to become world famous.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51The following morning, Mendelssohn took a tourist boat
0:04:51 > 0:04:54deeper into the Hebrides, heading for a tiny and remote island
0:04:54 > 0:04:57that was in all the guide books as one of the wonders of the world -
0:04:57 > 0:05:01Staffa, so ancient, it doesn't even have fossils,
0:05:01 > 0:05:04and with its extraordinary sea cavern crafted from basalt pillars,
0:05:04 > 0:05:06Fingal's Cave.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13It was a difficult journey then and it still is today.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17We'd planned to retrace Mendelssohn's trip to Fingal's Cave,
0:05:17 > 0:05:21but with summer storms brewing, our skipper refused to take us.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24So, David, what conditions do you think Mendelssohn was met with
0:05:24 > 0:05:26when he set sail on that day in 1829?
0:05:26 > 0:05:29Er...not very good, I don't think.
0:05:29 > 0:05:30As bad as this or worse?
0:05:30 > 0:05:33Er...it wouldn't be as bad as this,
0:05:33 > 0:05:36because the boats that were operating in those days weren't as big.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39No engines. It was all either oar or sail.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41And there's no way that you'll just take me now?
0:05:41 > 0:05:44- No.- If we go carefully?- No. No, Charles. No. No!
0:05:44 > 0:05:46Go on!
0:05:46 > 0:05:51So we waited and we waited.
0:05:51 > 0:05:52BOAT ENGINE ROARS
0:05:52 > 0:05:57And our luck finally turned when David seized a "weather window".
0:05:57 > 0:05:59We might not be able to land,
0:05:59 > 0:06:02but he agreed to risk the hour-long voyage to Staffa.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05So at last we're under way.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09We're going to Staffa to see Fingal's Cave, this amazing place
0:06:09 > 0:06:12which inspired Mendelssohn to write such a great piece of music.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14It's a piece I've conducted so many times
0:06:14 > 0:06:18without ever having seen its inspirational origin.
0:06:18 > 0:06:20At last, I'm going there.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42Mendelssohn also had bad weather.
0:06:42 > 0:06:46A poor sailor at the best of times, he was miserably seasick
0:06:46 > 0:06:48for the entire voyage.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11We did manage to land, but soon after we heard of a new storm
0:07:11 > 0:07:16heading our way. I had only a few minutes to get to the famous cave,
0:07:16 > 0:07:19have a look and get back to the boat.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49That was just a totally visceral experience!
0:07:49 > 0:07:53Standing inside that huge, black, marble mouth,
0:07:53 > 0:07:55the sound of the sea just crashing around!
0:08:15 > 0:08:17This is tempestuous music!
0:08:17 > 0:08:20But Mendelssohn's original manuscript is anything but.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24It's incredibly fastidious. Even the corrections are measured!
0:08:26 > 0:08:29What I love is how neat it is. For instance, the bar lines.
0:08:29 > 0:08:31- This, I could conduct from! - You could. Oh yes!
0:08:31 > 0:08:33It's as clear as a printed page.
0:08:50 > 0:08:56Mendelssohn has painted a picture of our landscape in sound.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00Fingal's Cave, the first tone poem, opened the door to a new style
0:09:00 > 0:09:04of descriptive music which inspired composers for the next 100 years.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24Britain became almost a second home to Mendelssohn.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27He made nine more visits during his short life.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30He was building on our historic bonds with Germany.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33Britain had a Hanoverian monarch in George IV
0:09:33 > 0:09:37and in Handel, a German national composer.
0:09:37 > 0:09:39But Mendelssohn's principal home was in Leipzig
0:09:39 > 0:09:43in the first-floor apartment of this building.
0:09:51 > 0:09:53Mendelssohn's grandfather, Moses,
0:09:53 > 0:09:56had been the leading Enlightenment philosopher of his day.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58Pretty impressive forebear.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01And Mendelssohn had the perfect upbringing -
0:10:01 > 0:10:06parents, like all great parents, who created just the fertile seedbed
0:10:06 > 0:10:10for Felix and his equally gifted sister, Fanny, to grow their talents.
0:10:10 > 0:10:15He learnt languages, learnt to draw, he read literature voraciously,
0:10:15 > 0:10:16both ancient and modern.
0:10:16 > 0:10:19He danced, he fenced, he did gymnastics.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22He became a thoroughly rounded young man.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25And on top of all of this, his parents, Leah and Abraham,
0:10:25 > 0:10:27chose to baptise their four Jewish children
0:10:27 > 0:10:30into the Protestant Christian faith.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32This was, of course, a pragmatic choice,
0:10:32 > 0:10:36but largely driven by the belief, derived from Grandfather Moses,
0:10:36 > 0:10:39that we're all equal - the same under God.
0:10:46 > 0:10:50One astonishing achievement is Mendelssohn's String Octet,
0:10:50 > 0:10:53which is by any standards a miracle piece,
0:10:53 > 0:10:57let alone the fact that it was written by a mere 16 year old.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10You get what I would call a kind of Mendelssohnian translucence -
0:11:10 > 0:11:12this incredibly delicate tune just skittering along
0:11:12 > 0:11:14over a very busy background.
0:11:14 > 0:11:18But somehow the busy background never engulfs the theme.
0:11:18 > 0:11:19It seems to float.
0:11:30 > 0:11:33Mendelssohn was arguably the most prodigiously talented
0:11:33 > 0:11:35teenage composer in history.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42And he was also growing up at a time when German music
0:11:42 > 0:11:46was seen as something of profound moral importance.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49When Mendelssohn starts writing music,
0:11:49 > 0:11:51it's not just writing music.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55He's actually already writing music with a kind of mission behind it.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22German composers are basically preachers,
0:12:22 > 0:12:27teaching the community about how life and art should be.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37This is why Johann Sebastian Bach becomes extremely important.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44This is St Thomas's church, Leipzig, where Johann Sebastian Bach worked
0:12:44 > 0:12:46for the last 30 years of his life.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53The teenage Mendelssohn was the driving force
0:12:53 > 0:12:55in the 19th century revival of Bach's music.
0:12:55 > 0:13:01Aged just 20, he conducted Bach's masterpiece, the St Matthew Passion,
0:13:01 > 0:13:05which hadn't been heard since the composer's death 80 years earlier,
0:13:05 > 0:13:07and hasn't left the world stage since.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14But this was so much more than just dusting off a great old museum piece
0:13:14 > 0:13:16and representing it to the world.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19Mendelssohn engaged creatively with the work,
0:13:19 > 0:13:22cutting it, re-scoring it, re-working it,
0:13:22 > 0:13:26to speak with optimum clarity to the people of his own time.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30MUSIC: Opening movement of "St Matthew Passion" by JS Bach
0:13:36 > 0:13:40Mendelssohn's early encounters with what it means to be a German artist
0:13:40 > 0:13:43will have important implications for the British.
0:13:47 > 0:13:52Here, Handel's revered position among composers stayed unassailable.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56His music has formed the backbone of every British coronation
0:13:56 > 0:13:58since George I in 1727.
0:13:58 > 0:14:06In 1837 Victoria became Queen and Zadok The Priest rang out again.
0:14:06 > 0:14:13# Zadok the priest
0:14:13 > 0:14:21# And Nathan the Prophet... #
0:14:21 > 0:14:231837 was a highly significant year for Mendelssohn.
0:14:23 > 0:14:26He got married to Cecile Jeanrenaud,
0:14:26 > 0:14:27the daughter of a French pastor,
0:14:27 > 0:14:31and after their seven-week honeymoon in the Rhineland and Black Forest,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34he came here to Birmingham, to perform a brand-new piece
0:14:34 > 0:14:37commissioned from him by the city's Triennial Festival.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00Mendelssohn himself took the solo part in that first performance
0:15:00 > 0:15:02of his Second Piano Concerto.
0:15:25 > 0:15:27As Victoria took the throne, Britain's landscape
0:15:27 > 0:15:31was already being transformed by industrialisation.
0:15:31 > 0:15:35And here in Birmingham, the so-called workshop of the world,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37the population was exploding,
0:15:37 > 0:15:40and the canal system here, constructed over previous decades,
0:15:40 > 0:15:44now covered more miles of waterway than Venice.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59This music is passionate and intense.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03But, as ever, Mendelssohn crafts it with a truly classic sense of form.
0:16:03 > 0:16:06There's none of the dangerous, bad-boy abandon that we associate
0:16:06 > 0:16:09with Romantic composers like Liszt or Berlioz.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12So how appropriate that the performance took place
0:16:12 > 0:16:18in one of the most beautifully classically proportioned buildings of its age - Birmingham's Town Hall.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23When Mendelssohn first started coming here, the Town Hall
0:16:23 > 0:16:26must have been pretty new. What was the area around it like?
0:16:26 > 0:16:30The area around the Town Hall was mostly old housing
0:16:30 > 0:16:32and poorer people living here.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35No drains, no sewers, no refuse collection.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37And it was making a statement, Charlie. It was saying,
0:16:37 > 0:16:41"We might be industrial and have smoke belching from our factories,
0:16:41 > 0:16:43"we might be dark, but we are civilised -
0:16:43 > 0:16:47"civilised like the greatest city state in history - Ancient Rome."
0:16:47 > 0:16:50Manchester could say they were the Athens of the North.
0:16:50 > 0:16:52We went better in Brum. We were Rome.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54We were the greatest city state in history.
0:16:54 > 0:16:57So this beautiful Town Hall was designed to look like
0:16:57 > 0:17:00- the temple of Jupiter Stator.- So it was, genuinely, for everybody?
0:17:00 > 0:17:04It was for everybody. It was the people's hall.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16So when Mendelssohn first come, he did a pen and ink drawing
0:17:16 > 0:17:17of this locality.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21And all you see is smoke belching out of chimneys.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36It's interesting - when Mendelssohn first comes to Birmingham,
0:17:36 > 0:17:39Charles Dickens, the people's writer, who knew what it was to be hungry,
0:17:39 > 0:17:42who knew what it was to be poor, brought out his first great novel,
0:17:42 > 0:17:44The Posthumous Papers Of Mr Pickwick.
0:17:44 > 0:17:50And that sketch of Mendelssohn is matched by a compelling paragraph
0:17:50 > 0:17:52of words, by Dickens, about Birmingham,
0:17:52 > 0:17:53the great working town.
0:17:53 > 0:17:55And as Sam Weller and his master, Mr Pickwick,
0:17:55 > 0:17:58come along the Bristol road into Birmingham,
0:17:58 > 0:18:01"..As they rattle through the narrow thoroughfares,
0:18:01 > 0:18:02"leading to the heart of the turmoil,
0:18:02 > 0:18:05"the sights and sounds of earnest occupation
0:18:05 > 0:18:08"struck more forcibly upon the senses. The streets were thronged
0:18:08 > 0:18:09"with working people.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12"The hum of labour resounded from every house.
0:18:12 > 0:18:16"The lights in the long casement windows of the attic storeys gleamed,
0:18:16 > 0:18:19"and the whirl of wheels and the din of machinery
0:18:19 > 0:18:20"shook the trembling walls.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24"The fires, whose lurid sullen light had been visible for miles,
0:18:24 > 0:18:27"blazed fiercely up in the great works and factories of the town.
0:18:27 > 0:18:31"The din of hammers, the rushing of steam and the dead,
0:18:31 > 0:18:33"heavy clanking of the engines was the harsh music
0:18:33 > 0:18:35"which arose from every quarter."
0:18:35 > 0:18:39That was the music, outside, that Mendelssohn, this great composer,
0:18:39 > 0:18:42was putting music on inside, but we had our own music.
0:18:42 > 0:18:44Manufacturing music.
0:18:44 > 0:18:46Fantastic!
0:19:08 > 0:19:11These days, Mendelssohn is sometimes dismissed
0:19:11 > 0:19:13as a mere chocolate-box composer.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17But the parallel is, in fact, slightly more revealing.
0:19:17 > 0:19:19In that industrialising century,
0:19:19 > 0:19:24both Mendelssohn and the chocolate manufacturers were on a similar crusade.
0:19:24 > 0:19:26We often think of industry
0:19:26 > 0:19:30in terms of steel, of glass, of hard, shiny things.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32And yet, here in Birmingham,
0:19:32 > 0:19:35chocolate was a major part of industry. How did it all begin?
0:19:35 > 0:19:36Well,
0:19:36 > 0:19:41chocolate was an industry the various Quaker families were interested in,
0:19:41 > 0:19:46partly because drinking chocolate, which is what you were making until, really, the 1850s,
0:19:46 > 0:19:50was seen as an alternative to alcohol, apart from anything else.
0:19:50 > 0:19:54It was something they felt comfortable making and making money from.
0:19:54 > 0:19:56And the Cadburys, here in Birmingham,
0:19:56 > 0:20:00turned into the most successful chocolate-making dynasty of all.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03There's a correlation here with Mendelssohn.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06He had a very strong patrician, Victorian sense
0:20:06 > 0:20:08that music was for the good of all -
0:20:08 > 0:20:10that it could act as a salve to social ills.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13It seems to me that drinking chocolate had the same ambition.
0:20:13 > 0:20:17Yes, it did. There were places called temperance houses
0:20:17 > 0:20:18which were alternatives to pubs,
0:20:18 > 0:20:21where you'd have tea or chocolate or maybe coffee.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25People were defended against the evils of alcohol.
0:20:25 > 0:20:27The Cadburys also built on that.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31This idealism was more than just preventing people doing things.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35They actually tried to create a vision here in Bournville
0:20:35 > 0:20:40of a Utopia, in a way - an ideal place for workers to live in.
0:20:40 > 0:20:46# O for the wings, for the wings of a dove... #
0:20:46 > 0:20:49A magnificent carillon overlooks Bournville's village green,
0:20:49 > 0:20:51inspiring Cadbury's workforce
0:20:51 > 0:20:55with hymns and other morally uplifting music
0:20:55 > 0:20:57like this classic, O For The Wings Of A Dove,
0:20:57 > 0:21:00from Mendelssohn's Christian anthem Hear My Prayer.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02BELLS JANGLE TUNEFULLY
0:21:13 > 0:21:14They wanted their workers
0:21:14 > 0:21:17to be healthy and, really, morally better.
0:21:17 > 0:21:19Richard and George Cadbury,
0:21:19 > 0:21:22"Mr Richard" and "Mr George", as they were known to their employees,
0:21:22 > 0:21:26every morning at 9.00 would do a Bible reading for their staff,
0:21:26 > 0:21:28which was compulsory.
0:21:29 > 0:21:31CARILLON CONTINUES
0:21:35 > 0:21:38Mendelssohn had captured the popular imagination.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42Up and down the country, he was hugely respected for his values,
0:21:42 > 0:21:44and loved for his tunes.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46MUSIC DRAWS TO A CLOSE
0:21:50 > 0:21:52By this time, Mendelssohn was fast becoming
0:21:52 > 0:21:55the absolute epitome of the Victorian gentleman -
0:21:55 > 0:21:58quite an achievement for a foreigner.
0:21:58 > 0:21:59What's more, this humble composer
0:21:59 > 0:22:02was entering into an intensely intimate relationship
0:22:02 > 0:22:05with both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
0:22:05 > 0:22:10This intimacy led to a number of very small, private musical gatherings at Buckingham Palace.
0:22:10 > 0:22:15At one of the earliest of these, Queen Victoria chose a Mendelssohn song she particularly loved,
0:22:15 > 0:22:17and they performed it together.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23# Schoner und schoner schmuckt sich der Plan
0:22:23 > 0:22:26# Schmeichelnde Lufte wehen mich an!
0:22:26 > 0:22:30# Fort aus der Prosa Lasten und Muh'
0:22:30 > 0:22:34# Zieh' ich zum Lande der Poesie
0:22:34 > 0:22:37# Gold'ner die Sonne, blauer die Luft
0:22:37 > 0:22:42# Gruner die Grune, wurz'ger der Duft... #
0:22:42 > 0:22:46But after they'd sung it, Mendelssohn,
0:22:46 > 0:22:50rather nobly, to my mind, confessed that though the song was published under his name,
0:22:50 > 0:22:53it had actually been written by his sister, Fanny.
0:22:53 > 0:22:59# ..Und dies, halb Wiese, halb Ather zu schau'n
0:22:59 > 0:23:02# Es war des Meeres furchtbares Grau'n?
0:23:02 > 0:23:06# Hier will ich wohnen, Gottliche du
0:23:06 > 0:23:12# Bringst du, Parthenope, Wogen zur Ruh'... #
0:23:12 > 0:23:17Mendelssohn wrote that "Victoria sang well,
0:23:17 > 0:23:21"hitting the last high G with more purity than any amateur".
0:23:21 > 0:23:29# ..Wogen auch dieser Brust! #
0:23:35 > 0:23:41Testimony to the intensely close relationship between Mendelssohn and the young Queen Victoria.
0:23:41 > 0:23:46There's this real jewel in the British Library - a collection of seven piano duets,
0:23:46 > 0:23:50some of his most famous songs, like Spring Song, which Mendelssohn prepared
0:23:50 > 0:23:52and presented especially to Her Majesty.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54THEY PLAY: "Spring Song"
0:24:15 > 0:24:18So, like all piano duets, it's divided into two parts -
0:24:18 > 0:24:22the primo, the first player, and the secondo, the second player.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26The primo is clearly Queen Victoria. It is deliciously simple.
0:24:26 > 0:24:31She obviously wasn't much of a keyboardist. It is almost playable by one finger -
0:24:31 > 0:24:35a token of the ultimate respect and love from a composer
0:24:35 > 0:24:36to the Queen.
0:24:40 > 0:24:41CHARLES PLAYS WRONG NOTE
0:24:54 > 0:24:59Mendelssohn remained a friend of both Victoria and Albert for the rest of his life.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02Albert was an accomplished amateur composer,
0:25:02 > 0:25:05all three spoke German as their first language
0:25:05 > 0:25:08and they also shared a wider cultural vision,
0:25:08 > 0:25:10where music played a powerful role.
0:25:10 > 0:25:12BELLS PEAL
0:25:12 > 0:25:17When our Queen Elizabeth was married, she followed a tradition established by Victoria
0:25:17 > 0:25:19nearly a century earlier.
0:25:19 > 0:25:21ORGAN PLAYS
0:25:21 > 0:25:25In 1858, Victoria chose Mendelssohn's Wedding March
0:25:25 > 0:25:28for the marriage of her eldest daughter.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31ORGAN PLAYS: "Wedding March"
0:25:31 > 0:25:34And to this day, the Wedding March remains
0:25:34 > 0:25:36Mendelssohn's most popular piece of music.
0:25:36 > 0:25:38CROWD ROARS
0:25:38 > 0:25:40So what's its secret?
0:25:42 > 0:25:44Weddings are about two things -
0:25:44 > 0:25:46expectation and resolution.
0:25:46 > 0:25:50So what does Mendelssohn give us? First, an opening fanfare gambit.
0:25:52 > 0:25:53Remember it?
0:25:56 > 0:25:59Where are all our eyes? Definitely on the bride.
0:25:59 > 0:26:03And then, for the first big chord of the big tune, it could be just this.
0:26:03 > 0:26:06- PLAYS CHORD - It's OK, but it's lacking something.
0:26:06 > 0:26:12It needs that extra little fizz of excitement - of ecstasy, if you like. So here's that basic chord...
0:26:12 > 0:26:14and he adds in just this note.
0:26:15 > 0:26:19It's called an added sixth, and it gives us all the delight we need
0:26:19 > 0:26:21to canter off down through the phrase.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28Finally, we're at home. We've achieved resolution.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31We've been playing it with the instruments of the day,
0:26:31 > 0:26:34which sound quite vulgar, quite garish, in a way -
0:26:34 > 0:26:36perhaps too much for some tastes.
0:26:36 > 0:26:38But you can't say it's not exciting.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44Success crowned success for Mendelssohn -
0:27:44 > 0:27:47not just an international celebrity, but a friend of royalty,
0:27:47 > 0:27:50a composer of hit tunes and, of course,
0:27:50 > 0:27:53there was also his other life back in Germany.
0:27:53 > 0:27:57Little of the Leipzig that Mendelssohn knew remains. But as I found out,
0:27:57 > 0:28:00his pioneering spirit still survives.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04He was famous for his phenomenal, workaholic lifestyle,
0:28:04 > 0:28:09and he held one of the most prestigious and demanding jobs in the German musical world -
0:28:09 > 0:28:13director of the legendary orchestra at Leipzig's Cloth Hall, or Gewandhaus.
0:28:15 > 0:28:19I went to the new Gewandhaus building in Leipzig
0:28:19 > 0:28:21to speak with Mendelssohn's successor.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26Knowing his commitment as a Gewandhaus Kapellmeister
0:28:26 > 0:28:31for 12 years, the amazement when you go through the programmes of those years
0:28:31 > 0:28:37was the conviction and the wish of, er...let's say promotion,
0:28:37 > 0:28:40in terms of discovering more and more
0:28:40 > 0:28:43the greatness of Ludwig van Beethoven, for instance.
0:28:43 > 0:28:46If you read through the programmes, you will be amazed
0:28:46 > 0:28:51how much and how persistently he would conduct the Beethoven symphonies,
0:28:51 > 0:28:53with some preferences.
0:28:53 > 0:28:58The No. 7, the No. 5 and the No. 3 were always among the preferences.
0:28:58 > 0:29:01I think the idea was to bring music to people
0:29:01 > 0:29:04and, secondly, the educational problem -
0:29:04 > 0:29:07how a country could be cultivated in music.
0:29:07 > 0:29:12Mendelssohn was one of the first to invent the idea
0:29:12 > 0:29:14of the historical concert -
0:29:14 > 0:29:18that is, you start with a work by Johann Sebastian Bach.
0:29:18 > 0:29:23You move along history and have a bit of Handel, then some Mozart and Haydn,
0:29:23 > 0:29:27Beethoven, Schubert and then, of course, yourself as the composer.
0:29:27 > 0:29:29This is the kind of concert he planned.
0:29:29 > 0:29:33He changed the way people saw concerts,
0:29:33 > 0:29:37so concerts become a kind of education in history.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41MUSIC: Symphony No. 3, 3rd movt
0:29:41 > 0:29:45Mendelssohn made perhaps his most significant contribution to that German history
0:29:45 > 0:29:47in his five symphonies.
0:29:47 > 0:29:49The third of these
0:29:49 > 0:29:55was finished in 1842, but its roots lie in that famous trip to Scotland a dozen years earlier.
0:29:55 > 0:30:01Mendelssohn wrote that he first conceived his Scottish Symphony during his visit
0:30:01 > 0:30:04to the ruins of Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.
0:30:07 > 0:30:12How does Mendelssohn summon up the brooding majesty of the scene?
0:30:12 > 0:30:15Something he's brilliant at is painting with the orchestra,
0:30:15 > 0:30:19so just listen to the quality of the sound at the opening -
0:30:19 > 0:30:22a plangent and full-throated woodwind chorus,
0:30:22 > 0:30:25rich, but without significant bass.
0:30:25 > 0:30:29Normally, you might expect a velvety underlay of cellos and double basses,
0:30:29 > 0:30:31but there are none.
0:30:31 > 0:30:35The harmony rides on a much slenderer platform of horns and bassoons.
0:30:35 > 0:30:37I think Mendelssohn
0:30:37 > 0:30:41is looking at the sheer vastness of the sky and endless horizon,
0:30:41 > 0:30:44brooding and stark.
0:31:42 > 0:31:47Writing a symphony after Beethoven is a huge act for a composer.
0:31:47 > 0:31:51The Scottish Symphony is without doubt
0:31:51 > 0:31:54one of the best examples of Mendelssohn
0:31:54 > 0:31:59expanding the idea of German music, paradoxically as it sounds,
0:31:59 > 0:32:02through images of another country.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15One of the important things about the idea of German music
0:32:15 > 0:32:18is that it's meant to appeal to the whole of humanity.
0:32:18 > 0:32:23This is music that's going to give all people, not just German people,
0:32:23 > 0:32:25a kind of moral standard.
0:32:39 > 0:32:40In 1842,
0:32:40 > 0:32:45none other than Queen Victoria accepted the dedication of the Scottish Symphony.
0:32:45 > 0:32:49How interesting that just three months later,
0:32:49 > 0:32:51she made HER first trip north of the border,
0:32:51 > 0:32:57to the country that had become one of the most potent and romantic locations in Europe.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05"O Caledonia! stern and wild,
0:33:05 > 0:33:07"Meet nurse for a poetic child!
0:33:07 > 0:33:09"Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
0:33:09 > 0:33:12"Land of the mountain and the flood,
0:33:12 > 0:33:16"Land of my sires! what mortal hand
0:33:16 > 0:33:18"Can e'er untie the filial band,
0:33:18 > 0:33:22"That knits me to thy rugged strand!"
0:33:25 > 0:33:30Three literary giants had dominated the young Mendelssohn's world -
0:33:30 > 0:33:33Shakespeare, who he'd set, Goethe, who he'd met,
0:33:33 > 0:33:37and the Wizard of the North, Sir Walter Scott.
0:33:37 > 0:33:40The day after visiting Holyrood Abbey,
0:33:40 > 0:33:45Mendelssohn travelled out to the writer's legendary Borders home, Abbotsford.
0:33:45 > 0:33:49This is the main library. There's the study next door, of course.
0:33:49 > 0:33:53But as you can see, 10,000 books round about you here,
0:33:53 > 0:33:58and artefacts of all kinds, and the bust by Chantry at the other end there.
0:33:58 > 0:34:03Can you describe for us Mendelssohn's meeting with Scott?
0:34:03 > 0:34:06Mendelssohn's meeting with Scott
0:34:06 > 0:34:09is a very mysterious thing, really, because,
0:34:09 > 0:34:14on the suggestion of various people like his mother, and given the spirit of the age,
0:34:14 > 0:34:18he felt it was mandatory to see one of the great lions of Europe.
0:34:18 > 0:34:24Looking into what actually happened, it does appear to be something of a disappointment,
0:34:24 > 0:34:27because Scott - 1829 - Scott is tired,
0:34:27 > 0:34:32he's in debt - huge debt - he's only three years away from dying,
0:34:32 > 0:34:35and Abbotsford is being held almost in trust.
0:34:35 > 0:34:39It's become a kind of tourist trap, too, so in fact,
0:34:39 > 0:34:42Mendelssohn comes armed with his letter of introduction,
0:34:42 > 0:34:46but in fact Scott really doesn't pick up on him at all.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49And Mendelssohn says rather wryly afterwards,
0:34:49 > 0:34:52"I've had it with great men," he says.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57Despite this, Scott's writing had a huge impact on Mendelssohn's thinking.
0:34:57 > 0:35:02The matrix of things that Scott gives is almost limitless.
0:35:02 > 0:35:04New way of looking at history,
0:35:04 > 0:35:07new way of looking at nature and landscape...
0:35:08 > 0:35:12..all these things, plus settings of Gothic attraction
0:35:12 > 0:35:16and the marvellous - that complex of things
0:35:16 > 0:35:20that just caught the mood of the incipient century and launched it,
0:35:20 > 0:35:26so that everybody in Europe, from Victor Hugo down to Turgenev, to Tolstoy,
0:35:26 > 0:35:28they all say, "We are the children of Walter Scott."
0:35:32 > 0:35:36For Mendelssohn, Scotland was to remain a rich well of inspiration,
0:35:36 > 0:35:41providing a pictorial and poetic base to his musical romanticism,
0:35:41 > 0:35:43just as it had for the poet Keats,
0:35:43 > 0:35:46who'd made a similar trip a few years earlier.
0:35:48 > 0:35:52The Keats-Mendelssohn comparison is rather interesting.
0:35:52 > 0:35:56Keats wanted a home-grown version of the sublime, that's what it comes to.
0:35:56 > 0:35:58That's why he goes to Fingal's Cave,
0:35:58 > 0:36:02and I'm thinking particularly of Fingal's Cave because of Mendelssohn.
0:36:02 > 0:36:07The idea was to address himself to the mightiest things he could find,
0:36:07 > 0:36:09and to use that as a way of thinking about
0:36:09 > 0:36:13how to crank up the imaginative scale of things,
0:36:13 > 0:36:15and at the same time
0:36:15 > 0:36:17to give some physical reality
0:36:17 > 0:36:22to what drove him in almost all walks of his imaginative life,
0:36:22 > 0:36:27which was to think about how writers might do good in the world.
0:36:27 > 0:36:32Mendelssohn's vision was almost identical, and perhaps nowhere more so
0:36:32 > 0:36:36than at the transformative, hymn-like conclusion to his Scottish Symphony.
0:37:10 > 0:37:15It wasn't only his large-scale visions that touched a nerve with the British.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18Mendelssohn's more modest music was taking a special place
0:37:18 > 0:37:21in Victorian domestic life.
0:37:21 > 0:37:22PIANO PLAYS
0:37:30 > 0:37:33The piano industry was booming in Britain.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36By 1842, the famous piano maker Broadwood
0:37:36 > 0:37:40was one of the twelve largest employers in London.
0:37:42 > 0:37:47Instruments were finding their way into the homes not just of the wealthy
0:37:47 > 0:37:50but of the burgeoning middle class,
0:37:50 > 0:37:54and all these people needed music to play.
0:38:00 > 0:38:04In his incredibly popular series of short pieces, Songs Without Words,
0:38:04 > 0:38:10Mendelssohn provided music to let the Victorians' imagination run free.
0:38:17 > 0:38:21And when he did write music for a particular story, the results were more than evocative.
0:38:23 > 0:38:28One of my most treasured possessions is this engraving of a painting by Richard Dadd.
0:38:28 > 0:38:32It's called Puck And The Fairies - it's a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
0:38:32 > 0:38:35Puck is, relatively speaking, huge, and the spirits,
0:38:35 > 0:38:39the fairies running around underneath him, are tiny,
0:38:39 > 0:38:42feminine maybe, androgynous almost certainly.
0:38:44 > 0:38:46I think Mendelssohn played a huge part
0:38:46 > 0:38:49in how the Victorians imagined the supernatural world.
0:38:49 > 0:38:54In 1843, he wrote more music for A Midsummer Night's Dream,
0:38:54 > 0:38:56and here, with his magical moods
0:38:56 > 0:38:58and evocative dreamscapes,
0:38:58 > 0:39:00he conjures up a brand-new vision
0:39:00 > 0:39:04of a mercurial, quicksilver fairyland.
0:39:19 > 0:39:22'This is quintessential fairy music.
0:39:22 > 0:39:26'You hear the sparkle of fairy dust and see the gossamer wings.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36'But Mendelssohn's magic is always hard won, and in recording it,
0:39:36 > 0:39:40'the orchestra and I came face to face with its fiendish difficulty.'
0:39:40 > 0:39:44Thank you very much indeed. Thanks. You're getting slightly behind
0:39:44 > 0:39:47at the top of that run, clarinets, bassoons, you're behind.
0:39:47 > 0:39:50The strings and the wind start to part company.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53- So just keep absolutely tight. - HE DEMONSTRATES RHYTHM
0:39:53 > 0:39:55It is scaring, and I tell you this
0:39:55 > 0:40:00because we finished playing two days ago the Midsummer Night's Dream stage music.
0:40:00 > 0:40:05How could a so-called "modern" orchestra, of the time of Mendelssohn,
0:40:05 > 0:40:09have played this infernal Scherzo the way it's written?
0:40:12 > 0:40:14I mean, today, clarinets,
0:40:14 > 0:40:18bassoons, oboes, are much improved instruments,
0:40:18 > 0:40:21and still it's hell, I guarantee you.
0:40:21 > 0:40:28For this orchestra, which knows even the shadow behind the notes of Mendelssohn, it's hell for them.
0:40:35 > 0:40:37Because the modernity,
0:40:37 > 0:40:42in the instrumental way, was so much ahead of its time, and I don't think
0:40:42 > 0:40:46he was a man easy for slow tempi.
0:40:57 > 0:40:59Perhaps that's part of his genius -
0:40:59 > 0:41:03that he deliberately made it feel on the edge of possibility,
0:41:03 > 0:41:09and I know from my own experience that there's a speed that will work very well for the clarinets
0:41:09 > 0:41:11but it won't suit the violins.
0:41:11 > 0:41:15- You have to find that mean, but it's always going to be on the edge.- Very tricky.
0:41:19 > 0:41:24Getting everyone to commit to the optimum tempo is key here - it's not easy.
0:41:24 > 0:41:26But we're there now.
0:41:36 > 0:41:38As a conductor, Mendelssohn was renowned
0:41:38 > 0:41:41for raising the standards of playing in his orchestras.
0:41:41 > 0:41:46And in Britain, he captured the public imagination with his pioneering use
0:41:46 > 0:41:48of that new conductor's tool - the baton.
0:41:48 > 0:41:55Sadly, no images of Mendelssohn conducting exist, but the Bodleian Library can go one better.
0:41:55 > 0:41:59SCHERZO ENDS Yes, we're fortunate
0:41:59 > 0:42:03that two of the batons owned by Mendelssohn have survived
0:42:03 > 0:42:06and are in this collection.
0:42:06 > 0:42:07There's this one...
0:42:09 > 0:42:12..which, as you can see, is an elaborate affair...
0:42:12 > 0:42:15- Looks like a conjuror's wand. - ..ebony with ivory.
0:42:15 > 0:42:19But alongside that, we've got this...white stick,
0:42:19 > 0:42:24which is a decidedly more utilitarian object.
0:42:24 > 0:42:25It's of whalebone
0:42:25 > 0:42:30- covered with white leather. - This feels very heavy.
0:42:30 > 0:42:33Batons today are these very, very light things,
0:42:33 > 0:42:35- essentially extensions of the arm.- Yes.
0:42:35 > 0:42:37Whereas this feels, you know...
0:42:37 > 0:42:40If I gave an upbeat with that, the orchestra would go BANG!
0:42:40 > 0:42:43SCHERZO COMES TO AN END
0:42:43 > 0:42:47Mendelssohn became Britain's favourite and most respected maestro,
0:42:47 > 0:42:53and a fascinating connection began to spark in the Victorian imagination.
0:42:53 > 0:42:58The baton conductor was quite interesting, because when he - and it was a he at the time -
0:42:58 > 0:43:03would spring upon the platform, and magically control a group of people
0:43:03 > 0:43:05by just waving his arms about,
0:43:05 > 0:43:11the audiences and the press responded with terms such as "wizard".
0:43:14 > 0:43:16This was tied in with mesmerism
0:43:16 > 0:43:20in quite an interesting way, because the conductor
0:43:20 > 0:43:25began to wear the black-tie outfit that we associate with conductors today,
0:43:25 > 0:43:28and mesmerists took the same costume.
0:43:28 > 0:43:31So there was this mix-up going on in the public imagination.
0:43:35 > 0:43:38This was a connection that continued right to the end of the century,
0:43:38 > 0:43:40so even in the novel Dracula, for instance,
0:43:40 > 0:43:45we get Dracula raising his arms like a conductor and the wolves respond to him.
0:43:45 > 0:43:52So there's this sense of magic in an almost occult sense - you know, raising the dead,
0:43:52 > 0:43:54raising the spirits.
0:43:55 > 0:43:59Victorian Britain was well aware of its dark side -
0:43:59 > 0:44:05of the social and moral consequences of poverty in its great and crowded cities.
0:44:10 > 0:44:16Just like today, people were desperate for a magic solution to the problems of a modern world.
0:44:20 > 0:44:25And in the 19th century, Mendelssohn and his music would become a powerful force
0:44:25 > 0:44:27in this struggle for reform.
0:44:27 > 0:44:33Across the country, choral societies were bringing huge numbers of our urban populations together.
0:44:33 > 0:44:37This great British tradition, which survives to this day,
0:44:37 > 0:44:41provided the seedbed for Mendelssohn's last masterpiece.
0:44:43 > 0:44:49Mendelssohn's most enduring legacy, I think, to Victorian Britain, was his oratorio Elijah,
0:44:49 > 0:44:53a piece which tells in music the story of that grand Old Testament prophet.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56And it took a place very quickly in the British people's hearts,
0:44:56 > 0:44:58alongside that of Messiah.
0:44:58 > 0:45:02It was commissioned once again by the Birmingham Triennial Festival,
0:45:02 > 0:45:07and had its first performance here, at the Town Hall, with Mendelssohn himself conducting.
0:45:07 > 0:45:14# I, even I, only am left... #
0:45:14 > 0:45:17It's rather surprising that Mendelssohn,
0:45:17 > 0:45:20who was a very sort of conservative musician,
0:45:20 > 0:45:23should have been drawn to this fiercest of Old Testament prophets.
0:45:23 > 0:45:25I think the point is, Mendelssohn felt
0:45:25 > 0:45:29that the world was falling into a state of moral decay
0:45:29 > 0:45:33and the world needed someone like an Elijah
0:45:33 > 0:45:36to make them sit up and realise the error of their ways.
0:45:38 > 0:45:42In the magnificently restored building that Mendelssohn knew so well,
0:45:42 > 0:45:48we performed some of the most dramatic sections of Elijah especially for this programme,
0:45:48 > 0:45:54working with members of six amateur choirs from right across the West Midlands.
0:45:55 > 0:45:58So let me give you a bit of background.
0:45:58 > 0:46:00This is a piece which tells the story
0:46:00 > 0:46:04of that great, vengeful, and at times furious prophet, Elijah,
0:46:04 > 0:46:11who has a prolonged attempt, effectively, to save the souls of his people.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15So we'll explore a section today which is all about false gods.
0:46:15 > 0:46:18You, the populace, crying for your false god.
0:46:18 > 0:46:22And then Elijah, trying to drag you back from the abyss.
0:46:22 > 0:46:25- PIANO BEGINS - One-two-three, one-two-three, AND...
0:46:25 > 0:46:29# Hear us, Baal! Hear, mighty god!
0:46:29 > 0:46:33# Baal, O answer us
0:46:33 > 0:46:35# Hear us, Baal
0:46:35 > 0:46:37# Hear, mighty god
0:46:37 > 0:46:39# Baal, O answer us... #
0:46:39 > 0:46:41HE SHOUTS
0:46:41 > 0:46:44This is not, repeat, not polite music.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47This not something which is prayerful.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52What we need is a sound approaching that of the football terrace, really.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55OK? And the other most important thing to say to you
0:46:55 > 0:46:58ladies and gentlemen, so hopefully we can eradicate it right now,
0:46:58 > 0:47:02is that you are wonderfully, fabulously and gloriously behind,
0:47:02 > 0:47:04the whole time! OK?
0:47:04 > 0:47:10Mendelssohn, I think, saw himself a little bit as an Elijah himself,
0:47:10 > 0:47:15in a musical way, in the sense that he saw himself to be the guardian of true musical values.
0:47:15 > 0:47:17Speak it to me...
0:47:17 > 0:47:19One-two-three, one-two-three...
0:47:19 > 0:47:21- SPEAKING:- Hear us, Baal.
0:47:21 > 0:47:22Good. Now shout it at me, please.
0:47:22 > 0:47:25One-two-three, two-two-three...
0:47:25 > 0:47:26- SHOUTING:- Hear us, Baal!
0:47:26 > 0:47:28That's the effect I want.
0:47:28 > 0:47:29PIANO BEGINS
0:47:29 > 0:47:31Now shock me...AND...
0:47:31 > 0:47:33# Hear us, Baal... #
0:47:33 > 0:47:35- AH-AH-AH-AH! - # Hear, mighty god
0:47:35 > 0:47:37# Baal... #
0:47:37 > 0:47:41There was great fear of groups of people coming together,
0:47:41 > 0:47:45because on the one hand you had revolutionary mob activity in France,
0:47:45 > 0:47:50at this time, and that was...rather close! You know, 30 miles across the English Channel.
0:47:50 > 0:47:55But there was also a sense that if you could get a group of people
0:47:55 > 0:47:59working together in the right sort of way, the nation could advance.
0:47:59 > 0:48:03And so it touched on that great Victorian word "progress".
0:48:03 > 0:48:09# Hear, mighty god! Baal, O answer us!
0:48:09 > 0:48:12- # Baal, let thy flames... # - Thank you...
0:48:12 > 0:48:16This man, Elijah, he's not a remote, mystical figure,
0:48:16 > 0:48:20delivering platitudes from on high.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23He's a character that people can associate with.
0:48:23 > 0:48:29And Mendelssohn himself had now become something of an adopted national hero to the British.
0:48:29 > 0:48:33The premiere of Elijah in Birmingham was a huge national occasion,
0:48:33 > 0:48:37perhaps the most iconic event in our Victorian musical history,
0:48:37 > 0:48:42and today, performing this music in the Town Hall with the BBC Concert Orchestra
0:48:42 > 0:48:45is still a viscerally thrilling experience.
0:48:49 > 0:48:52# Hear us, Baal! Hear, mighty god!
0:48:52 > 0:48:57# Baal, O answer us
0:48:57 > 0:49:01# Baal, let thy flames fall
0:49:01 > 0:49:03# And extirpate the foe... #
0:49:03 > 0:49:07Mendelssohn's forces for the premiere numbered over 400,
0:49:07 > 0:49:12and somehow another 2,500 souls had managed to squeeze in to hear them.
0:49:12 > 0:49:17# Hear us, Baal! Hear, mighty god!
0:49:17 > 0:49:21# Hear us, Baal! Hear, mighty god!
0:49:21 > 0:49:25# Hear us, Baal! Hear, mighty god!
0:49:25 > 0:49:30# Hear us, Baal! Hear, mighty god!
0:49:30 > 0:49:34- # O hear us! O hear us! - Hear us, Baal! Hear, mighty god!
0:49:34 > 0:49:36# Baal... #
0:49:36 > 0:49:42The great thing about Elijah is that he's got a wonderful line in sarcasm,
0:49:42 > 0:49:46and this always very refreshing, I think, with an Old Testament prophet.
0:49:46 > 0:49:49I love it particularly...
0:49:49 > 0:49:54when he's challenging the worshippers of the false god, Baal,
0:49:54 > 0:49:56to prove that their god exists.
0:49:56 > 0:49:58He says, "Come on, call him! Call him!"
0:49:58 > 0:50:01And there's no answer. He says, "Call him again."
0:50:01 > 0:50:08# Hear...us... #
0:50:08 > 0:50:12# Call him louder
0:50:14 > 0:50:17# For he is a god
0:50:17 > 0:50:23# He talketh, or he is pursuing
0:50:23 > 0:50:27# Or he is in a journey
0:50:27 > 0:50:32# Or, peradventure, he sleepeth
0:50:32 > 0:50:37# So awaken him
0:50:37 > 0:50:40# Call him louder
0:50:40 > 0:50:46# Call him louder. #
0:50:49 > 0:50:54- # Hear our cry, O Baal, - Hear our cry, O Baal
0:50:54 > 0:50:59# Hear our cry, O Baal... #
0:50:59 > 0:51:03When the piece was first performed, of course, this character
0:51:03 > 0:51:08with his back-to-basics, no-frills-attached sort of religion
0:51:08 > 0:51:12would have resonated very well with the non-conformist attitude
0:51:12 > 0:51:16which was very prevalent, especially in the Midlands.
0:51:17 > 0:51:22# ..Call him louder
0:51:22 > 0:51:25# He heareth not
0:51:25 > 0:51:29# With knives and lancets cut yourselves
0:51:29 > 0:51:32# After your manner
0:51:32 > 0:51:39# Leap upon the altar ye have made
0:51:39 > 0:51:44# Call him and prophesy
0:51:44 > 0:51:47# Not a voice will answer you
0:51:47 > 0:51:54# None will listen, none heed you
0:51:54 > 0:51:55# Baal!
0:51:55 > 0:51:57# Baal!
0:51:57 > 0:52:02# Hear and answer, Baal!
0:52:02 > 0:52:06# Hear and answer, Baal... #
0:52:06 > 0:52:11These massive choirs had a sound that would reach for miles.
0:52:11 > 0:52:14But for someone to sing in it, there was actually,
0:52:14 > 0:52:16physically represented in front of them
0:52:16 > 0:52:20and aurally heard, a sense of national unity.
0:52:20 > 0:52:22# ..Hear and answer, Baal!
0:52:22 > 0:52:25# Hear and answer
0:52:25 > 0:52:28# Hear and answer, Baal
0:52:28 > 0:52:32# Mark how the scorner derideth us
0:52:32 > 0:52:36# Derideth us, derideth us
0:52:36 > 0:52:40# Hear and answer, hear and answer
0:52:40 > 0:52:44# Hear and answer, hear and answer, Baal
0:52:44 > 0:52:48# Hear and answer, hear and answer
0:52:48 > 0:52:53# Hear and answer
0:52:53 > 0:52:58# Hear and answer
0:52:58 > 0:53:03# Baal, Baal
0:53:03 > 0:53:06# Hear and answer, hear and answer
0:53:06 > 0:53:09# Hear and answer
0:53:12 > 0:53:14# Hear and answer! #
0:53:19 > 0:53:22The task of creating this score was immense.
0:53:22 > 0:53:26Like Elijah, Mendelssohn had taken himself to the brink.
0:53:29 > 0:53:37When he's almost at his wits' end, there we see the private man, inside.
0:53:37 > 0:53:41There's no-one around to hear him when he turns to God
0:53:41 > 0:53:45and says, "Look, this is enough, I've done as much as I can,
0:53:45 > 0:53:48"I've tried to persuade them to come back to you.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51"They've killed all the other prophets,
0:53:51 > 0:53:56"all your prophets, they have killed. I'm the only one left.
0:53:56 > 0:53:58"I don't think I can go on much more."
0:54:07 > 0:54:12# It is enough
0:54:12 > 0:54:19# O Lord, now take away my life
0:54:19 > 0:54:27# For I am not better
0:54:27 > 0:54:33# Than my fathers... #
0:54:33 > 0:54:37Exhausted, Mendelssohn suffered a series of strokes
0:54:37 > 0:54:42and just a year after the premiere of Elijah, on 4th November 1847,
0:54:42 > 0:54:47he died at his home in Leipzig. He was just 38.
0:54:47 > 0:54:52# ..Take away
0:54:52 > 0:54:58# My life. #
0:55:13 > 0:55:16The death of Felix Mendelssohn marks the end of my journey
0:55:16 > 0:55:21through two centuries of musical and cultural change in Great Britain.
0:55:21 > 0:55:25His extraordinary impact here helped create a lasting vision
0:55:25 > 0:55:27of our national musical culture -
0:55:27 > 0:55:30the still-familiar world of conductors and concert halls,
0:55:30 > 0:55:33of choral societies and piano practice,
0:55:33 > 0:55:37of fantasy and imagination, of ceremony and celebration.
0:55:37 > 0:55:41MUSIC: "Zadok The Priest" by Handel
0:55:44 > 0:55:49Over 200 years, as Britain's political and social landscape was transformed,
0:55:49 > 0:55:54four towering composers played their part in providing a soundtrack for our nation.
0:55:54 > 0:55:56MUSIC: "Dido's Lament" by Purcell
0:55:56 > 0:56:00From Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn,
0:56:00 > 0:56:05we've inherited great music for the grandest and most solemn state occasions...
0:56:05 > 0:56:09MUSIC: "Wedding March" by Mendelssohn
0:56:10 > 0:56:12..music that inspires...
0:56:14 > 0:56:16..and just lets us have fun.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20# The pleasures of friendship, freedom and wine
0:56:20 > 0:56:24# The pleasures of friendship, freedom and wine... #
0:56:24 > 0:56:29MUSIC: "Spring Song" by Mendelssohn
0:56:29 > 0:56:32But their music does more than just entertain us.
0:56:32 > 0:56:35It brings our communities together.
0:56:35 > 0:56:36# Hallelujah!
0:56:36 > 0:56:39# Hallelujah!
0:56:39 > 0:56:42# Hallelujah, hallelujah
0:56:42 > 0:56:45# Hallelujah... #
0:56:45 > 0:56:49'And as I discovered as I travelled the country in the making of these films,
0:56:49 > 0:56:52'it celebrates our landscape...
0:56:53 > 0:56:55'..our lives,
0:56:55 > 0:56:56'and our language.'
0:56:56 > 0:57:06# I know that my Redeemer liveth... #
0:57:06 > 0:57:09And with Elijah, The Creation and Messiah,
0:57:09 > 0:57:12these composers bequeathed us a national soundtrack
0:57:12 > 0:57:15in a uniquely British form.
0:57:15 > 0:57:17# The wonder of his works
0:57:17 > 0:57:23# The wonder of his works displays, displays
0:57:23 > 0:57:26# The firmament
0:57:26 > 0:57:31# The heavens are telling the glory of God
0:57:31 > 0:57:34# The wonder of his works... #
0:57:34 > 0:57:36During this journey, we've witnessed how music
0:57:36 > 0:57:40has always been at the heart of the transformation of British society,
0:57:40 > 0:57:44and above all, we've celebrated the richness of British culture
0:57:44 > 0:57:47which comes from looking beyond our borders.
0:57:47 > 0:57:49British music is, and has always been,
0:57:49 > 0:57:52a platform for ideas of every sort.
0:57:52 > 0:57:55Our diversity is our strength.
0:57:55 > 0:58:01MUSIC: Fourth Movement of Scottish Symphony by Mendelssohn
0:58:31 > 0:58:34Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:34 > 0:58:38E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk