A Sense of Occasion: Mendelssohn in Birmingham in 1846 and 1847, Audrey Duggan, Brewin Books, 2011, 102p, ISBN 978-1-85858-449-2, £10-95.

It is often the case that the provision of a particular building or an important cultural occasion or, indeed, the visit of an international figure creates a defining moment in the history of a major town or city. What Audrey Duggan does in her A Sense of Occasion: Mendelssohn in Birmingham in 1846 and 1847 is to draw these three elements together. She demonstrates that the very first performance of Mendelssohn's ‘Elijah' at Birmingham Town Hall, with the revised version being presented there eight months later, with Felix Mendelssohn himself as the conductor on both occasions, was a cultural landmark in the musical experience of Midland England. An estimate of two and a half thousand people thronged into Joseph Hansom's Town Hall, in circumstances a lot less comfortable than in modern times, to see and hear Mendelssohn introduce his highly innovative oratorio in August 1846. Little did they know that this relatively young composer would be dead, probably an outcome of overwork, in just over a year. Audrey Duggan sets the scene well and explains the background of the various musicians and other people involved with clarity and candour, and she does genuinely convey the ‘sense of occasion' heralded in her title.