Rethinking 1829

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s 1829 Berlin performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is one of music history’s most legendary events, often cited as the origin of the “Bach Revival.” The historical record makes it clear, though, that Mendelssohn did not single-handedly rediscover Bach or his Passion and that his concert was not the first, even in Berlin, to feature Bach’s sacred vocal music. Nevertheless, the legend persists. This chapter re-examines the sources in search of a more inclusive view of Bach’s reception history in Berlin. In addition, it argues that the rhetoric of legend has endured in spite of the facts because it trades in the reassuring vocabulary of myth. The belief that Mendelssohn’s 1829 concert was a sudden and miraculous rediscovery cannot stand up to the facts, but the traditional story better serves the master narrative of German cultural hegemony in which Bach has played such an essential role.