Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde

Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde (German, Return of the stranger), known in English as Son and stranger or Return of the roamer, or is a one-act Singspiel written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1829 to a German libretto by the composer's friend Karl Klingemann, a poet who would later provide the text for the oratorio Elijah. The English title Son and stranger originated with the translation by Mendelssohn's friend, the critic Henry Chorley, created for a London production of 1851 and still often used for the rare revivals in English-speaking countries. The work was published posthumously as Mendelssohn's Op. 89.

During his first visit to the British Isles in 1829, bad weather in August forced Mendelssohn to abandon a planned visit to Ireland and instead make an extended stay at the home of a new acquaintance, mining engineer and businessman John Taylor, near Mold, Wales. While there, Mendelssohn penned Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde as a short comic play with music for performance in honor of his parents' silver wedding anniversary upcoming in December. The first performance was at the Mendelssohn family home on 26 December 1829 before an audience of 120. As the composer considered the work a piece for a strictly private occasion, it was not published in his lifetime, despite his mother's urgings to the contrary, and no public performance took place until a production, two years after the composer's death, in Leipzig on 10 April 1851; the first performance in England was also in 1851, for which Chorley's translation was written.

Mendelssohn himself conducted the first, private production, and all the roles were assumed by family members or associates of the composer, only one of whom, tenor Eduard Mantius, was a professional singer. As a consequence, the score contains a musical peculiarity: the mayor's part comprises only a few bars of music, all written on the single note F, because its creator, Mendelssohn's brother-in-law Wilhelm Hensel, had no ability as a singer.

Die Heimkehr had great success before its original audience, not least because of the mirth ensuing when Hensel, even prompted by humming on all sides, proved unable to sing the single note F that made up his part of the score. Following the work's posthumous publication, it overture achieved some popularity in four-hands piano reductions, and Kauz's patter song (in English "I am a Roamer") became a favorite for display in concert and parlor alike. The song also sometimes served as a test piece at Eisteddfodau. Modern productions, however, are rare, although a concert version was produced in Boston in early 2009.

...
Wikipedia