Mendelssohn: Die erste Walpurgisnacht

Series: 19th and Early 20th Centuries  Publisher: A-R Editions
This volume is part of the set Mendelssohn: Die erste Walpurgisnacht
Click for samples
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Die erste Walpurgisnacht
First Complete Version, 1832-33

Edited by John Michael Cooper

N049 Mendelssohn: Die erste Walpurgisnacht
978-0-89579-624-0 Full Score (2008) 9x12, xxxiv + 327 pp.
$295.00
SKU
N049

Performance Parts (Available Separately)

Die erste Walpurgisnacht (Piano-Vocal Score)

N049P
Keyboard-Vocal Score (2008)
ix + 118 pp.
$55.00

N049R
Rental Parts (2012)
Set of 49 parts: 2222 2230 timp 88664 choral
The first version of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's secular cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night) was composed during the last years of the composer's decade-long friendship with the work's poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It was premiered less than a year after Goethe's death, but despite his enthusiasm for the work Mendelssohn was unable to return to it as a publication project for several years. He did finally revise and publish it in 1842–44, and in that guise it won considerable acclaim, but by then Mendelssohn's professional standing had changed significantly, and so had the work itself. This edition represents the first publication of the young and unestablished Mendelssohn's early setting af Goethe's provocative ballad concerning the eighth-century conflict between paganism and Christianity in Germany. The work is masterful in its own right, and the similarities and differences between it and the later version offer telling insights into Mendelssohn's compositional development. The piano-vocal score incorporates Mendelssohn's own manuscript of a four-hand arrangement of the orchestral introduction.
No. 1: Einleitung
  Overture: Das schlechte Wetter / Bad Weather
  Der Übergang zum Frühling / The Transition to Spring
  Strophe 1: “Es lacht der Mai!” (Druide 1) / "Now May again" (Druid 1)
  Strophe 2: “Die Flamme lodre durch den Rauch!” (Druide 1 und Chor der Druiden) / "In sacrifice the flame shall rise" (Druid 1 and Chorus of Druids)
  Strophe 3: “Könnt ihr so verwegen handeln?” (Alte Frau) / "Know ye not a deed so daring?" (Old Woman)
  Strophe 4: “Auf des Lagers hohem Walle” (Alte Frau und Chor der Weiber) / "On their ramparts they will slaughter" (Old Woman and Chorus of Women)
  Strophe 5: “Wer Opfer heut' zu bringen scheut” (Druide 1) / "The man who flies our sacrifice" (Druid 1)
  Strophe 6: “Verteilt euch, wackre Männer, hier” (Chor der Wächter des Heidenvolks) / "Disperse, disperse, ye gallant men" (Chorus of Guards of the Pagan People)
 
No. 2
  Strophe 7: “Diese dumpfen Pfaffenchristen” (Druide 1) / "Should our Christian foes assail us" (Druid 1); “Kommt! Mit Zacken und mit Gabeln” (Chor der Wächter des Heidenvolks) / "Come! with flappers, Fire and clappers" (Chorus of Guards of the Pagan People)
  Strophe 8: “Kommt mit Zacken und mit Gabeln” (Chor des Heidenvolks) / "Come with flappers, Fire and clappers" (Chorus of Pagan People)
  Strophe 9: “So weit gebracht” (Druide 2 und Chor der Druiden) / "Restrain'd by might" (Druid 2 and Chorus of Druids)
  Strophe 10: “Hilf, ach hilf mir, Kriegsgeselle!” (Christlicher Wächter) / "Help, my Comrades, see a Legion" (Christian Guard)
  Strophe 11: “Schreckliche, verhexte Leiber” (Christlicher Wächter und Chor der christlichen Wächter) / "See the horrid Haggards gliding" (Christian Guard and Chorus of Christian Guards)
  Strophe 12: “Die Flamme reinigt sich vom Rauch” (Druide 2 und Chor der Druiden und des Heidenvolks) / "Unclouded now, the flame is bright!" (Druid 2 and Chorus of Druids and Pagan People)
 
Appendix I: Passages from No. 1 Excised or Revised after ca. July 1831
Appendix II: Passages from No. 2 Excised or Revised after ca. July 1831
Appendix III: Mendelssohn’s Piano-Duet Arrangement of the Overture