Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

 composed the cantata

Cantata

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

 Festgesang an die Künstler, Op. 68, in 1846 as an entry to a German-Flemish song competition, and it was published later that same year. Some sources confuse this Festgesang with one written in 1840 for the Gutenberg Festival at Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, the Festgesang (Gutenberg cantata)

Festgesang (Gutenberg cantata)

The Festgesang , also known as Festgesang zur Eröffnung der am ersten Tage der vierten Säkularfeier der Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in the first half of 1840 for performance in Leipzig at the celebrations to mark the putative quatercentenary of the invention of...

. The piece is a setting of verses by Friedrich Schiller

Friedrich Schiller

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...

for a men's choir and 13 brass instruments.