Hymn of Praise op. 52 MWV A 18

English Text by Charles Henry Monicke as approved by the composer

Mendelssohn’s contemporaries frequently mentioned his Hymn of Praise (Lobgesang) in the same breath as Beethoven’s Ninth – and often enough viewed it as an imitation. Mendelssohn authority John Michael Cooper, in his extensive Introduction to this new Urtext edition, shows that the comparison is completely unfounded: with this work Mendelssohn created a new genre to which he gave the name “symphony-cantata”. Later he added a secular counterpart with Die Erste Walpurgisnacht.