J.S. Bach - St Matthew Passion: This
work is one of two ‘Passion’ oratorios (An oratorio is a large scale musical
work for orchestra and voices,
typically a narrative on a religious theme, performed without the use of
costumes, scenery, or action.) that have survived since Bach died, but
it’s also become one of his most celebrated pieces. This is Baroque music and
the work is filled with biblical proclamations of impending apocalypse each of which
has a crushing atonality or strange chord (So when you listen and hear it, you
know that it is.)
Bach wrote his St. Matthew
Passion for a single purpose — to present the Passion story in music at Good
Friday vesper services. Bach's Passion continues to move audiences nearly three
centuries after it was first heard in St. Thomas's Church in Leipzig, Germany.
Standing as one of the pillars of Western sacred music, it is at once
monumental and intimate, deeply sorrowful and powerful.
With gripping drama, Bach's
Passion retells the compelling story of the events leading up to the
crucifixion of Jesus. Bach divided the music into two parts. Highlights of the
first part include the last supper and the betrayal and arrest of Jesus in the
Garden of Gethsemane.
In the second part, the music
turns softer and more somber — signaling the inevitability of the story — as it
depicts the trial, crucifixion and burial of Jesus. The Passion ends with the
darkly textured chorus "In tears of grief." Bach could leave his
parishioners in a sorrowful mood, knowing that they'd be celebrating Christ's
resurrection in just a few days.
Bach built his Passion from
choruses both small and large, and arias for specific characters such as Jesus,
Judas, Peter and Pontius Pilate. The Evangelist, a role for tenor voice, is the
principal storyteller, moving the drama along through through a kind of half
sung, half spoken recitative. Supporting Bach's massive structure are three
grand choruses — at the beginning, middle and end — standing as tall pillars,
holding up the surrounding music.
The Passion begins with an
immense wave of sound — an opening chorus constructed of an interlocking double
choir with a children's chorus soaring over the top — building with intensity
and sweeping the listener into the drama.
English tenor Ian Bostridge is so
taken with Bach's music that he has made the role of the Evangelist a staple of
his repertoire.
"I think the St. Matthew
Passion is one of the greatest pieces of music in the Western repertory,"
Bostridge says. "And to start one's journey toward understanding that
piece is a very important point in anybody's life."