‘Calvary’ was first performed at Cassel on Good Friday, 1835. Four years later it was given in England at the Norwich Festival, the composer himself conducting. While it met with considerable criticism because of ecclesiastical prejudice against the introduction of the personality of Jesus among the singing characters (Beethoven’s ‘Mount of Olives’ occasioned the same offense), the work was a signal success. The text was by Rochlitz. The work deals with scenes connected with the crucifixion and abounds in beautiful, expressive melody, both in the choruses (sung by the friends of Jesus) and in the ariosos of Mary and the recitatives of John. The beautiful chorus, ‘Gentle night, O descend,’ following a very grave and somewhat protracted overture, is an example of this expressive melody. The work becomes more impressive toward the close; especially so is the cry of Jesus, ‘My God, my God, O why hast Thou forsaken me?’ followed by the fervent prayer of the disciples, ‘In this dread hour of death,’ and another beautiful number sung by the disciples, ‘His earthly race is run,’ set for a quartet of solo voices accompanied by the chorus. A highly dramatic number is the chorus of priests and people, as they express their consuming fear aroused by the convulsions of nature attendant upon the crucifixion. The final number is a beautiful, sustained chorus of the disciples, ‘Beloved Lord, Thine eyes we close.’ II The world waited fifty-six years after the first performance of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (1742) before Haydn presented his ‘Creation,’ the first oratorio after Handel’s death that is comparable with his great masterpiece. After a lapse of thirty-eight years another oratorio appeared--Mendelssohn’s ‘St. Paul’--which rose above the ‘Creation’ and revealed its composer as one on whose shoulders the mantle of both Handel and Bach had descended with power. Versatile as Mendelssohn was in many forms, vocal polyphony seemed most congenial of all, and he will undoubtedly live longest in his great choral masterpieces, ‘St. Paul’ and ‘Elijah,’ the latter of which reaches a point of grandeur of conception and effective dramatic expression that remains as yet unsurpassed by any subsequent choral work. One of the most skillful contrapuntists since Bach, a perfect master of orchestration and possessed of exquisite sense of formal values, Mendelssohn was splendidly equipped to take advantage of the tremendous strides that had been made in the musical means of expression since the time of Handel and Haydn. He absorbed the devotional intensity of Bach’s choral music and reinstated the chorale as an integral element of German oratorio; from Handel he borrowed massiveness of choral structure and brilliance of vocal writing. Like Handel, his mode of musical speech was direct and intimate and its appeal was couched in terms of even more suave beauty. The immediate success of Mendelssohn’s oratorios was