Most of Mendelssohn's theatrical incidental music was written from 1841 to 1845, when he was employed by King Frederick William IV of Prussia. At the same time the composer was engaged in establishing the music side of a cultural Academy in Berlin (and, when this fell through, in Leipzig) and was the principal conductor in Leipzig.

Frederick William was an arch-Romantic and culture-loving king who had just been exposed to Greek tragedy and ordered a production of Sophocles' Antigone. For his part, Mendelssohn was attracted to the project by its drama and its universal human themes. He set many of the choruses, wrote interludes and melodramas (music supporting individual spoken lines).

Much of the music is very effective and on Mendelssohn's highest level. However some of the choruses have a problem stemming on the decision of the production's producers and translators to adhere to the same meters used in the Classical Greek original. In these sections Mendelssohn's flow of melody is interfered with as he submitted to the bonds of this unvarying poetic meter.

The music begins with an introduction. Its slow opening part is exceptional music, noble and tragic, but it is let down by an aimless fast section. The great paean to man, "Of all the Wonders ..." is presented in an unusually sweet and happy vein. Another worthy chorus is a chorus of Bacchanates, "Fair Seleme's high-born son," full of vigor and enthusiasm.

It is in the melodramas (that form so hard to perform in concert, with dramatic spoken reading over music) that Mendelssohn's theatrical genius is most evident. In the funeral music ending the play the composer portrays both heroism and irrationality with a frightening intensity that is quite different from the common image of this composer.

The variability of quality in this incidental music, as a whole, conspire to impede performances of any of it, but much of the music is not only of exceptionally high quality, but represents some of the strongest emotion to be found in his music.

© Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide