Craig Jessop

Craig Jessop was asked a year ago whether he’d be interested in conducting Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio St. Paul at this year’s Founder’s Day concert at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. That was right after he had led the cathedral choir and orchestra in a remarkable performance of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion. “[Cathedral director of liturgy and music Gregory Glenn] came up to me and said, ‘We’ve programmed St. Paul for next year. Would you conduct it?’” Jessop immediately agreed. “I told Greg I’d love to sink my teeth into this great orchestral/choral work.”

St. Paul has been performed once before at the cathedral, in 2009, but it’s definitely a work that isn’t done as often as Mendelssohn’s other oratorio, Elijah. “I know that for many people this is a virtually unknown work,” Jessop said in a phone interview with Reichel Recommends.

This will be Jessop’s first time conducting it. “Three of the choruses are standards for the Tabernacle Choir,” he said, noting that as the former director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir he knows these three movements quite well. “But I’ve never conducted the complete oratorio.”

Jessop, though, is well acquainted with the music. “In my early days I sang it at the Oregon Bach Festival under Helmuth Rilling,” he said.

The form and structure of St. Paul, as well as of Elijah, which Mendelssohn wrote a decade after St. Paul, owe a great deal to the oratorios of Bach. “Like Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, the chorales in St. Paul are used as commentary, or a homily if you will, on what took place.”

It’s no surprise that Mendelssohn took his inspiration for his oratorical writing from Bach. After all, it was Mendelssohn who revived Bach’s music after it had fallen into neglect after the composer’s death in 1750. “Mendelssohn revived the St. Matthew Passion a 100 years after it was first performed,” and rekindled an interest in Bach’s music that has survived to this day.

Joining the cathedral’s adult and children’s choirs will be soloists Celena Shafer, soprano; Aubrey Adams-McMillan, mezzo-soprano; Brian Stucki, tenor; and Tyler Oliphant, baritone. “I am looking forward to working with the soloists,” Jessop said. “They are all fantastic.”

The oratorio will be sung in English, in a translation that Mendelssohn himself was involved with. “It was premiered in Liverpool in English six months after its German premiere in Düsseldorf,” Jessop said. “The translation we’re using is the one that Mendelssohn had a hand in.”

Jessop said that Sunday’s performance will be without any cuts. “The whole work with intermission runs about 2 1/2 hours. It’s an entire evening of incredible music. It’s the type of work where you need to come and relax and immerse yourself fully in it.”

• CONCERT DETAILS:   
• What: Mendelssohn, St. Paul, Cathedral of the Madeleine Choir and Orchestra, Craig Jessop, conductor
• Venue: Cathedral of the Madeleine, 331 E. South Temple
• Time and Date: 8 p.m. March 15
• Tickets: Free, but seating passes required
• Phone: 801-994-4663
• Web: www.utmcs.org