THE BACH REVIVAL

When Mendelssohn was young, one of his closest friends was Edward Devrient—a serious musician and an excellent singer. The two of them loved digging through the music of “Old Bach,” amazed at the craft and learning packed into it.

One day they decided to tackle Bach’s “Passion Music”—a work that hadn’t been heard publicly for about a hundred years, and that even capable musicians mostly knew only by name.

They were stunned by its beauty. Devrient immediately insisted it belonged on a public stage. Mendelssohn laughed at first—sure the public would reject it and the whole thing would flop. But the more they talked, the more Mendelssohn caught fire too.

So these two young men—Mendelssohn was only eighteen—went to Zelter, Mendelssohn’s teacher and one of Berlin’s most influential musical figures. After plenty of argument, they persuaded him the plan could work. With Zelter’s support, they plunged into the hard, unglamorous reality of mounting the piece: hiring soloists, assembling the double chorus and the double orchestra the score required, and managing everything that comes with a major performance.

Devrient sang the role of Christ, and Mendelssohn conducted.

The result (in 1829) was a triumph. The audience demanded an encore performance, and Berlin—soon followed by the broader musical world—began to realize that Bach’s masterpieces were a kind of treasure mine that wouldn’t run out for ages. Much of the modern world’s knowledge and appreciation of Bach’s sacred masterpiece is owed to those two young advocates, and especially to Mendelssohn.

Mendelssohn didn’t stop there. Through his efforts, a monument to Bach was erected in 1842 in front of the Thomas Schule where Bach had taught, placed so it faced the windows of Bach’s study—an enduring tribute to one of the true sources of modern music.