Felix Mendelssohn's Lobgesang is a resounding celebration of the virtues of knowledge, the work having been commissioned to celebrate the 400^th anniversary of the invention of the moveable-type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440.  It echoes the composer's two great musical heroes - Beethoven in the form of the work, which is the final, choral movement of a symphony, and Bach in the venue of the first performance, the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.

The earlier Lobgesang by his sister Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel was composed to celebrate the first birthday of her son Sebastian, and is in the form of a Bach cantata but with echoes of Haydn's late oratorios.

Felix's short Verleih uns Frieden, from the same year as his sister's cantata, is a sumptuous setting of a prayer for peace by Martin Luther.