Mendelssohn's Hear my Prayer and Hymn of Praise | Tewkesbury Choral Society

Hymn of Praise was commissioned by the City of Leipzig to form part of the celbrations to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the invention of movable-type printing. It is also known as Symphony No 2. The opening Sinfonia for orchestra is in three movements and the following Cantata is in ten sections. The text is derived mainly from the Book of Psalms, with the exception of the the section which begins "Let all men praise the Lord". This is a translation from the German Nun danket alle Gott, mor familiar in hymn book version "Now thank we all our God", set to the same tune.

Hear my Prayer is a setting of William Bartholomew's paraphrase of verses from Psalm 55. It includes the passage "O for the wings, for the wings of a dove!", made famous by the 1927 recording by boy soprano Ernest Lough.

Mendelssohn was born to a well-to-do cultured family in Hamburg. A gifted child,he became a distinguished composer, organist and conductor, was instrumental in reviving interest in the musi of J S Bach and founded the Conservatory in Leipzig (the city in which Bach spent most of his productive years).

This concert brings together two of the finest examples of Mendelssohn's sacared music.