Casting our eyes back a little, Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio Paulus (St Paul) achieved considerable success after its first performance in 1836 in Düsseldorf and subsequent British premiere at the 1837 Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival. Drawing primarily on the Acts of the Apostles and narrating the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the work combines Mendelssohn’s gift for heartfelt melodic writing (for example, in the aria Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets) with both opulent and energetic choral and orchestral textures (such as in “O great is the depth of the riches of wisdom”). Once a staple of British choral societies but now eclipsed by Mendelssohn’s later oratorio Elijah, Paulus can be heard in its original German text in a ravishing recording from Frieder Bernius and Kammerchor Stuttgart (Carus) as part of their landmark series of Mendelssohn’s complete church music.