Examining Mendelssohn, Protestant Music

For two decades, Siegwart 'Zig' Reichwald, Adams professor of music and worship at Westmont, immersed himself in the sacred music of German composer and performer Felix Mendelssohn. But when he studied the works the composer wrote for the Berlin Cathedral in 1843- 44, he was struck by how much they differed from the rest of Mendelssohn’s musical creations. 

“Unlike his other sacred works, these pieces have a liturgical function and purpose,” Reichwald says. “They helped establish a new liturgy for German Protestantism, and they functioned to lead the congregation into deeper worship, both intellectually and emotionally.”

Reichwald’s new book, “Mendelssohn and the Genesis of the Protestant A Cappella Movement,” is part of the Cambridge Elements Series that broadly targets musicologists, historians and theologians.

While most deemed Mendelssohn’s brief stint as director of Prussian church music as inconsequential, Reichwald has reevaluated 25 compositions for the Berlin Cathedral that offer a different narrative. “This book tells that story and presents a missing link

in our understanding of the rise of the Protestant a cappella movement,” he says. “It’s the first study that places any of his works within their specific theological and liturgical contexts.”