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
Christus. Mysterium in a Prelude and Three Oratorios Christus. Mysterium in a Prelude and Three Oratorios Christus: Ein Mysterium in einem Vorspiele und drei Oratorien is a musical composition by Felix Draeseke consisting of a prelude and three oratorios completed in September 1899. It was Felix Draeseke's most impressive accomplishment and took him over thirty years to prepare and five years to compose. It spans opus numbers 70-73. Beginning as early as the 1860s, Draeseke and his brother-in-law, the Reverend Adolf Schollmeyer, began gathering ideas for the project. According to the composer's own program notes: "Christus" was premiered in Berlin in 1912, with Bruno Kittel conducting. Later that