Elijah (oratorio) Austrian bass Joseph Staudigl. Mendelssohn had discussed an oratorio based on Elijah in the late 1830s with his friend Karl Klingemann, who had provided him with the libretto for his comic operetta "Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde", which resulted in a partial text that Klingemann was unable to finish. Mendelssohn then turned to , the librettist for his earlier oratorio "St. Paul", who quickly abandoned Klingemann's work and produced his own text that combined the story of Elijah as told in the Book of Kings with psalms. In 1845, the Birmingham Festival commissioned an oratorio from Mendelssohn, who worked with
Paul Rubens (composer) Paul Rubens (composer) Paul Alfred Rubens (29 April 1875 – 5 February 1917) was an English songwriter and librettist who wrote some of the most popular Edwardian musical comedies of the early twentieth century. He contributed to the success of dozens of musicals. Born in Kensington, London, he attended Winchester College before studying law at University College, Oxford. He began writing songs for shows at the age of 10 and had his first major success with "The Little Chinchilla" for the hit musical "The Shop Girl" when he was 19 years old. This was soon followed by songs for, among