In the early 1820s, the director of the Berlin Singakademie, Carl Zelter, got hold of a copy of Bach’s St Matthew Passion and rehearsed some of the choral movements in private. There’s a certain irony here: the missing phrase, of course, belongs to Judas, and highlights him as the only disciple impudent enough to ask the question. No. From there to the end [of the performance], many of us were in a trance, out of which the chorus jolted us with one last unexpected gesture: in the silence after the final chord, the singers turned…and stared outward, with cold, expectant glances. Bach's large choral composition was written to present the Passion, as told in the Gospel of Matthew, in a vespers service on Good Friday. Listen to John Eliot Gardiner’s benchmark recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion right now. “As Sir David points out… Bach might well have approved of making the “fullest use of the resources available to him”…The crowd choruses are vividly characterised, the chorales sung with unaffected naturalness.” – Gramophone. Even the larger “double” choruses, divided in today’s editions simply as “Choir I” and “Choir II”, were originally conceived as having specific historic roles to play. We are interested in two inhabitants of the city, the composer Johann Sebastian Bach, Cantor of the Thomas School and Church, and the writer Christian Friedrich Henrici (pen name: Picander), Post Office Commissioner. I keep trying to like “purist” performances including Gardner but I can’t mare up to them. Listen to excerpt 1 – “Come ye daughters.”, To hear both examples, listen to excerpt 8, Listen to excerpt 9 to hear the rippling motion, Not a Time to Take Sides – Except God’s Side. The story was arranged by Christian Friedrich Henrici, a postal official in the city who wrote verses using the pseudonym of Picander. No one but the individual concertgoer can answer that question, but in the interest of piquing the interest of those to whom Bach’s “Great Passion” is a foreign, inaccessible enigma, here are a few thoughts. Obviously, our anguish is vicarious, limited to the realm of Bach’s (and our) imagination. Fast forwarding to 2014, the same seems to have happened to one of the best-known music critics of our time, Alex Ross, who attended a performance of the Passion by the Berlin Philharmonic that year and was so deeply affected by it that he wrote an entire piece about the concert in the normally cynical-witty pages of The New Yorker. I, II This music sheet has been read 4160 times and … Listen to excerpt 9 to hear the rippling motion. IHS 89 Key G Dorian mode Year/Date of Composition Y/D of Comp. We gladly renounce private property and share everything in common. This new version of the Bach Saint Matthew Passion has a fresh new interpretation of the Passion, as well as Bach's own structuring from the Gospel of Matthew. In between (how there was any “in between” at all, with so many children, is beyond my comprehension) she assisted him by copying his scores. But what should it be? The story here is as follows: Caiaphas consults with leaders to kill Jesus. Notes at the Bach Museum in Leipzig contain complaints by his contemporaries suggesting that he was too easy on the pupils in his care, who, instead of doing their studies in the evening, ran wild through the streets. There’s also a number where the woodwinds play in repetitive triplets that evoke the soloist’s words: she’s singing about how her heart is swimming in a sea of tears. For a specific example relating to Bach, there’s Paul Simon’s song “American Tune,” which is almost identical to “O Sacred Head.”. It’s a melody originally written by one Hans Leo Hassler (1562-1612). 1: No. Finally, Bach employs a sort of Greek chorus to respond to the events. Required fields are marked *. The St. Matthew Passion of Bach is a massive oratorio set for double chorus and orchestra, multiple soloists, and an Evangelist. And not just one orchestra – but two. Just at this point, Bach interrupts the narrative to insert the chorale “’Tis I who am most guilty,” a stark reminder that the real responsibility for Christ’s betrayal is not Judas’s alone, but that each of us must bear our part. Like operas, though, oratorios do have casts. “Bach’s Große Passion,” (1989), The recorded excerpts in the notes are from John Eliot Gardiner’s recording with the Monteverdi Choir (Archiv Produktion, © 1989). Gordon, David. In his notes for the original LP set, Sir David justified his deliberate departures from ‘the so-called authentic type of performance’, despite advances in Bach scholarship and a plethora of top-notch period performances. We might think of them as sober, earnest hymns, but some were originally street tunes. In St. Matthew Passion we have the narrator, who is called the evangelist, because he recites, in “recitatives,” the story of the crucifixion as told in the gospel, or evangel (from the Latin evangelium). According to the Japanese Bach scholar Tadashi Isoyama, recent research indicates that Bach’s librettist (the Leipzig poet Christian Friedrich Henrici, who went by the pen name Picander) drew on collections of passion sermons included in Bach’s personal library, and that “it seems probable that Bach did not simply select verses and set them to music, but rather influenced the construction of the texts.”. The full title (from the cover of Bach’s fair copy) is Passio Domini Nostri J. C. Secundum Evangelistam Matthaeum; that is, “The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Gospel of Matthew.” Of course, the word “passion” does not refer to “love” in this instance, but comes from passio – a participle of the Latin verb “to suffer.”, Bach sets out to make this suffering palpable in the first chorus by its mood: turbulence, anguish, minor chords, and then light breaking through with what Leonard Bernstein called the “redemptive clarity” of the ripieno. The St. Matthew's Passion (Matthäus-Passion), BWV 244 is a sacred oratorio by J.S. A familiar instance of this in recent years is Carlos Santana’s use, in his album Supernatural, of a melody from Brahms’s Symphony No. It is a theatrical concept, a drama. “The St. Matthew Passion” – notes for Minnesota Public Radio, (2001) The speeches of various characters – Commentator (soprano), Evangelist (tenor), Christ (bass), Peter (bass), Judas (bass) and so forth – are represented by various solo singers. John Eliot Gardiner has also written about the schematic symmetry in the larger structure of the oratorio too – that is, the way the sequence of choruses, arias, and chorales in Part I is mirrored in Part II. David Gordon notes, “Only at the moment of Christ’s death does this halo fall away, and Jesus utters his poignant final ‘Why have You forsaken Me?’ accompanied by the basso continuo alone.”. When all is said and done, the best testimony to the meaning and power of the St. Matthew Passion is the music itself, and the best way to approach it is simply to listen to it, whether by means of a recording or a live performance, and to let it work in you. The St Matthew Passion performed by the Netherlands Bach Society for All of Bach. Bach: Texts of Vocal Works in Translation, with Commentary It moves the spirit toward self-reflection and the exercise of the conscience.”. Some of his music can even be played, simultaneously, by two musicians on opposite sides of a table, one reading the music upside down, to form a second part. Conversations (1996-1998) These events were so well attended that you had to come several hours early if you wanted a good seat. Like operas, though, oratorios do have casts. Instead, it works to give the oratorio coherence, the way a literary motif might in a novel. “Atonement: The St. Matthew Passion at the Armony,” The New Yorker, (Oct. 27, 2014) Then there’s the so-called Lord Supper sequence, where, as mentioned earlier, the phrase “Lord, is it I?” is repeated eleven times – once for each faithful disciple. This sort of turbulent, emotionally charged musical outcry is known as a “turba” (i.e. A fine example of Bach’s use of repetition to make connections is noted by the scholar Christoph Wolff, who suggests that the use of the same melody for “O blessed Jesus,” the first chorale in the oratorio, and one of the last “O wondrous love” is intentional. In 2020 the whole world seemed to be waiting for the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. (Instead, the choir, dressed in street clothes, was arranged on a round stage, with the audience around it, to invite maximum participation in the experience.) Listen to excerpt 3: the Passover story; Jesus’ prediction that one of his disciples will betray him; the evangelist’s depiction of their growing sorrow; and finally, the question, “Lord, is it I?”, The following chorale (excerpt 4) answers their question from our perspective: “Lord, it is my sin that binds thee – I am the one who ought to be suffering such tortures.”. 17, the bass accompaniment consists of 116 notes, a not-so-subtle reference to Psalm 116, which has the verse, “I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.”, In No. Programme Notes - Musical Director (St Matthew Passion) Posted: 25th February 2019 For the concert on 9 March 2019: It is a privilege to welcome you to our performance of J.S. Rather, the composer restricts himself to creating a drama whose full force comes to expression through the musical delivery. The St. Matthew Passion is one of hundreds of sacred pieces Bach wrote during his long tenure as director of church music and cantor of the school at Thomaskirche. SWV 479 I-Catalogue Number I-Cat. It is unclear exactly how many Passion settings Bach wrote: perhaps but not likely five, possibly three or four. In the end, perhaps it is Bach’s insistence on reminding us of this “whole Gospel” that gives his Passion such depth. Warner Classics: 7777630585. Jens, Inge, ed. This was an unorthodox way of presenting religious history and not the kind of thing that the more devout members of the congregation / audience felt was appropriate for a church, the feeling being that the work was too ‘operatic’. Writing about the place of the Passion in Bach’s life, David Gordon, a musicologist, writes: With this performance Mendelssohn revived, almost single-handedly, interest in Bach. Bach actually uses the melody of his best-known chorale, “O sacred head now wounded” five times in this Passion, but they are harmonized so differently that the repetition is not at all tedious. At the Bach House in Eisenach, where he was born and raised, numerous Bibles, hymnals, and multi-volume works by Martin Luther (in some cases heavily marked in the margins) attest to the fact that he had more than a passing interest in theology, and that he took his faith seriously. Fania Records: How A New York Label Took Salsa To The World, Pride Of The Opry: Charley Pride Makes Musical And Cultural History, ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’: Bathing In Brian Eno’s Genius. Gardiner, John Eliot. Sir John’s approach to the work is as celebrated as his first-class soloists, his great Monteverdi Choir and the splendid English Baroque Soloists. When my wife and I lived in New York, the Brooklyn Academy of Music was offering a series of special Passion concerts each spring that dispensed with the customary stand-and-sing presentation. Matthew Passion” on Good Friday, and that it shattered him. Matthew Passion,” for starters, and you’ll come up with a staggering number of matches. Google “St. J.S. Again, it doesn’t just describe Good Friday, but invites everyone to participate in remembering it, and thereby relive (for example) the emotions of the anxious, tired, or faithless disciple, the watcher in the crowd, or Christ’s grieving mother. Every note is performed in … Thus, the score is laid out for Chorus 1 and Orchestra 1, Chorus 2 and Orchestra 2. The St. Matthew Passion has been presented in staged performances. Bach uses it no less than five times in the course of the St Matthew Passion, each time presenting it in a new way, with different words, keys and harmonisations (he also used it – twice – in the Christmas Oratorio and in several cantatas). Bach's St. Matthew Passion: A Rudimentary Psychological Analysis, Part II by Vladimir J. Konecni University of California, San Diego Arousal-raising devices: Psychophysical and collative variables Paradoxical as it may seem, it is generally considered that Bach was able to achieve great variety through his ingenious counterpoint. Driving some friends to the train the other day – they were headed to Leipzig for a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in the church where he composed it – it struck me that Bach is everywhere at this time of year, at least here in his home state of Thuringia. (Despite this prodigious output, by the way, Bach was not known so much as a composer during these years, but first and foremost as a brilliant organist, organ builder and technician, and teacher. He notes that in a 1519 treatise on the Crucifixion, Martin Luther had. Unlike the opera, the best-known type of musical drama, the oratorio does not use costumes, makeup, or musicians who act while they sing. He was born in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany, the same year as Handel, though the two never met, because Handel spent most of his adult life in London. Our vocation is a life of service to God, each other, and you. In 1723, the family moved to Leipzig, where Bach spent the rest of his life, mostly at St. Thomas, where he was cantor, though also at the city’s other big church, St. Nicholas. Endless critical appraisals, from the academic to the heartfelt, including an unlikely appreciation by a London Muslim who says that the work is so “devastating” in its power that even non-Christians can find meaning in it. The crowd says, “Not upon this feast!” Then the evangelist sings of the anointing of Jesus in Bethany, and the crowd reacts, “To what purpose is this waste?” to which Jesus responds by singing of how the woman who anointed him will always be remembered. Explore our guide to Bach’s ‘St Matthew Passion’ widely regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of classical sacred music. Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion, BWV 244, is structured on multiple levels: the composition is structured in three levels of text sources and by the different forms that are used for musical expression. (‘Bleed Now, Loving Heart!’); the sublime alto aria with violin obligato ‘Erbame, Dich’ (‘Have Mercy’), a second soprano aria ‘Aus Liebe Will Mein Heiland Sterben’ (‘Out Of Love My Saviour Is Willing To Die’); the blood-curdling moment when the mob calls for Barrabas to be freed and Christ to be crucified’; and the final number in the Passion, the double chorus ‘Wir Setzen Uns Mit Tränen Nieder’ (usually translated as ‘ In Tears Of Grief’). For example, he wrote melodies comprised of 14 notes, 14 being the sum of the letters of his name, with each letter representing a number (A = 1, B = 2, etc). One setting of “O sacred head” is unrelievedly somber, as when Jesus has just been crucified. The Joy of Music (2nd Edition) In Bach’s time, St Thomas’s had two organ lofts – the larger of the two accommodating the musicians for Sunday services throughout the year, the smaller loft used for the additional numbers needed for the music at Christmas and Easter. There was no room for a stage, and no time for scene changes.) What sort of piece is Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, that it has such a wide reach and such tremendous staying power? Some of these are obvious because of the interplay of music and text; others are open to interpretation and have been “discovered,” so to speak, by critics over the years. John Eliot Gardiner’s benchmark recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion can be bought here. As with all great religious art, there is no need to explain or justify such an assertion: the piece has, in and of itself, sufficient power to touch the heart, awaken the imagination, and enliven faith. To me, the most vivid tonal depiction comes in the alto aria “Have mercy,” which Alex Ross calls “the most beloved passage in the St. Matthew Passion.” Evoking Peter’s bitter weeping after his denial of Christ, the “keening melody” is interwoven with a “sad, serene, gently dancing violin solo… The singer tries to emulate the violin’s endless melody but keeps falling short, because parts of it lie outside her range. (‘Passion’ is derived from the Latin verb ‘patior’ meaning ‘to suffer’ or ‘endure’, from which we also get ‘patience’ and ‘patient’.) In the 1740s, he began to go blind. Yet this remastered recording of Bach's St. Matthew Passion--like that of his Bach concertos with Glenn Gould and others--is a moving document of musical and emotional empathy. In the second, which follows the crowd’s shouts of “Let him be crucified!” the crucifixion has become a concrete reality. St Matthew Passion - Bach. We used to go to similar (free) concerts at St. Peter’s, a church on the Upper East Side, where the audience was invited to sing along with each chorale. By forcing the singers to enact both the arrogance of the tormentors and the helplessness of the victims, Bach underlines Luther’s belief in the inescapability of universal guilt.”, Moving on to describe the recitative where the baritone sings Jesus’ final cry of “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” Ross writes that “a more uncanny symbol of the loneliness of death can scarcely be imagined. It was performed only a few more times, “always under his own direction and with his apparently meager ensemble of church musicians.” (David Gordon). Only two survive today; the second of these, the St. Matthew Passion dates from 1729. It is composed in two parts, that were to be … J. S. Bach: Leben und Werk, Bd. The St. John Passion. In St. M… In April 1829, despite strong opposition from some quarters, the twenty-year-old Mendelssohn, with the help of Zelter and his friend the actor Eduard Devrient, mounted the work’s first modern performance, albeit in an abbreviated form, given to mark what was then thought to be the centenary of its first performance. Announcements for past and future performances from the smallest rural church choirs to the largest halls of New York, Moscow, Johannesburg, Berlin, Tokyo, and Sydney. They seemed to say, ‘You, too, are responsible.’”. He was only twenty, and a recent convert to Christianity. Rather, the composer restricts himself to creating a drama whose full force comes to expression through the musical delivery. ⇒ 11 more: Ich bin's, ich sollte büßen • Erkenne mich, mein Hüter • Ich will hier bei dir stehen • Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh' all Zeit • Mir hat die Welt trüglich gericht't mit Lügen • Wer hat dich so geschlagen • Bin ich gleich von dir gewichen • Befiehl du deine Wege • Wie wunderbarlich ist doch diese Strafe! There had already been a long history of Passion music – that is musical settings telling the story of the final, short period in the life of Jesus. These take two forms: there are eleven chorales which “step outside the action at significant spots and react to the story…They provide commentary and create a sense of a community response to the events just described by the soloists.” Then there are the four longer choruses that frame each half of the Passion, like bookends. Little is known with certainty about the creation process of the St Matthew Passion. Discourses on historically accurate performing standards and instrumentation. Even the deepest aria – take, for instance, “Have mercy” – remains a solo, performed by one person; everyone else remains a listener. In the Passion, as elsewhere, Bach uses his mastery of musical forms to create powerful contrasts of mood. Indeed, his is a musical interpretation of the gospel of St. Matthew, and it makes for one of the great Matthew Passion recordings. In a way, it’s hardly surprising. J.S. Versions and contemporaneous performances. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his St. Matthew Passion for a single purpose — to present the Passion story in music at Good Friday vesper services. We are a fellowship of families and singles, practicing radical discipleship in the spirit of the first church in Jerusalem. Stream songs including "St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, Pt. Listen to excerpt 11 to hear this. As he noted, in a scribbled comment in the margin of his Bible, “In music of true worship, God is always present with his grace.” Many of his scores are inscribed with an abbreviated heading (or footer) expressing devotion, for example: S.D.G. Your email address will not be published. Bach did not act as his own librettist for the St Matthew Passion. “Programmatic Notes to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion” (1999) Then there’s the dramatic point where the soloist sings Jesus’s words, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” On the word “weak,” the accompaniment crumbles. Scholarly articles on its structure. The chorales, by the way, are not Bach’s own melodies, but familiar tunes that he borrowed and arranged. He was, by now, working as a violinist, organist, and consultant to organ builders. “Bach’s St. Matthew Passion” (2001) This tradition of borrowing music is still going strong; though whereas 300 years ago serious musicians were borrowing popular tunes, it’s now working the other way around: popular musicians are borrowing from classical tunes. Back to the composition of the music itself, Bach was also keenly aware that his talent was a gift. In 1707 he married a second cousin, Maria Barbara, and had seven children. Ross, Alex. Schweitzer, Albert. The last “actor,” of course, is Jesus himself. According to the critic Alex Ross, all this is a fruit of Bach’s intent, which was not merely to set an important text to music, but to bring to life a theological truth. The results are just full of wonder, and bittersweet joy--perfectly suited to the seasons f Easter and Passover, not to mention the Time of the Coronavirus disease plague in 2020. David Gordon writes: The best example of this is the so-called “Lord’s Supper sequence.” Note the accompaniment (and the interplay of narrator and cast). As Tadashi Isoyama writes, “Put simply, the Passion is music that calls for mankind to reflect and to awaken. Recordings – hundreds of them. (There’s a whole book devoted to this subject called Bach and the Physics of Music.) As Hans David Listen to Bach: St Matthew Passion by Christa Ludwig, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Helen Watts, Nicolai Gedda, Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Choir, Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir Peter Pears, Walter Legge & Wilfred Brown on Apple Music. Indeed, it is clear that his devotion to Christ was deep and personal. It prompts repentance, urging us to turn from vice toward freedom and salvation. The story for the work was taken mostly from the Gospel According to Matthew , but the actual verses that Bach set to music were provided by several contemporary poets. Bernstein, Leonard. Even so, the experience is vital. Bach: St. Matthew Passion The city, Leipzig in 1727: site of a fine university, a secondary commercial center, a satellite of Dresden. Every year for Good Friday Vespers, a Passion would be performed in one of Leipzig’s two principal (Lutheran) churches, St. Thomas and St. Nicholas. Bach’s St Matthew Passion this evening and it is particularly special to be finally performing this great work given the unexpected weather that forced us to cancel this event in March 2018. Stream songs including "St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244: No.1 Chorus I/II: "Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen"", "St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244: No.2 Evangelist, Jesus: "Da Jesus diese Rede vollendet hatte"" and more. Has anything else lasted, culturally speaking, from 1727 to the present? That’s the simple choral melody set above the swirling accompaniment. (For a peerless example of such chorale singing, listen to excerpts 5, 6, and 7.). In Hans’s reply (from Munich, where he is studying medicine), he says he didn’t go; he fears it wouldn’t have meant much to him. Bach St Matthew Passion: Text, Translation and Musical Notes . Look at any big city newspaper around Easter, and you’re sure to find a performance advertised somewhere. The libretto of the St. Matthew Passion combines freely composed poetry and hymn verses with chapters 26 and 27 of The Gospel According to Matthew. The music is seductive, even voluptuous. It is an audible symbol of human frailty, akin to Peter’s failure of courage.”. It is said that silence is complicity. Bach, written in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by picander. Notizen zur Matthäus-Passion Bach completed his St. Matthew Passion in time for Good Friday, 1727 (he revised it later, at least once). In the best recordings, these nuances are taken into account, avoiding the tedious delivery that so many people unfairly (but understandably) associate with chorales; in fact, their delivery will be appropriately varied, according to the context. (“In Nomine Jesu,” which means “In the name of Jesus”) or J.J. (“Jesu Juva,” which means “Help me, Jesus”). Seen from a distance, the two ensembles, each visually dominated by a large number of singers, do indeed look equal. Is it really just the music drawing people? Geiringer, Karl. These performances would … Bach's Passion continues to … Written in 1727, the St. Matthew Passion represents a large-scale intersection of composition and Lutheran theology. We are an intentional Christian community of more than 3,000 people living in twenty-eight settlements on four continents. Some illustrations: In No. (‘Passion’ is derived from the Latin verb ‘patior’ meaning ‘to suffer’ or ‘endure’, from which we also get ‘patience’ and ‘patient’.) This moment in our country’s history demands a response. The solo vocal and multipart choral styles of Italian Baroque music were strongly influential in Germany. In 1725, two years after he took up his appointment of cantor at St. Thomas’s, he wrote the Passion According To St. John. Here, a few examples: In one number, the cello ascends a major scale, as the singer describes Christ’s ascent of the Mount of Olives. We're an intentional Christian community with locations worldwide. To hear both examples, listen to excerpt 8. With respect to the chorales, their poetic lyrics are perhaps just as moving as their musical power. Program Notes J.S. For instance, whereas the St John Passion had a mere continuo accompaniment (harpsichord or organ), its successor had an orchestra with Christ’s words accompanied by strings (an effect that has been compared to a halo round the Saviour’s head). We’ll start in one of the most sublime and powerful corners of J.S. Extolling the “invasive beauty of the lamenting arias, which give the sense that Christ’s death is the acutest of personal losses,” he said they had the effect of “pulling all of modern life into the Passion scene. Speaking of faith, Bach was a staunch Lutheran. Motown And Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have A Dream Speech, Hemispheres: Prog Rock From Around The World, Best Martin Luther King Songs: 10 Moving Tributes, ‘Happy Birthday’: Stevie Wonder Helps Create Martin Luther King Day, Best David Ruffin Songs: 20 Essential Soul Gems, New Radicals Reunite After 22 Years For Biden-Harris Inauguration Performance, Jon Pardi Wants ‘Tequila Little Time’ As New Single Hits Country Radio, I’m Virtually Going To Graceland: Elvis’ Mansion Launches Online Tours, Gentle Giant Share Early 1970s Denver College Radio Interview, Morgan Wallen’s ‘Dangerous’ Hits No.1 And Breaks Country Streaming Record. Bach revised the piece considerably several times, but the final performance during his lifetime, in 1749, was similar in form to the first version. Jesus says that someone will betray him, and the chorus, representing the disciples, responds, “Lord, is it I?” The phrase is repeated eleven times, once for each faithful disciple. In the biblical text, vocal soloists portray Jesus, Pilate, other individual characters, and Matthew the Evangelist, delivering their narration and … Listen to excerpt 2 – and note the evangelist, the turbae, and the strings accompanying the voice of Jesus. Listen to Bach: St. Matthew Passion by Peter Schreier, Rundfunkchor Leipzig & Staatskapelle Dresden on Apple Music. In yet another, the basses stumble over and over the same phrase, illustrating Jesus’s footsteps as he stumbles under the weight of the cross. On the occasion of the centenary of the first performance of the St Matthew Passion in Aberdeen in 1912, Peter Parfitt, Musical Director of Aberdeen Bach Choir, has prepared a musical commentary on the work with the text (in German) and translation into English. Typically, these are done with all performers in street clothes or neutral costumes, the orchestras on stage, the soloists singing without scores, and the words acted out in a solemn fashion, with only a minimal stage set. These led directly to a complete reassessment and revival of interest in all of Bach’s music for, baffling as it seems nowadays, Johann Sebastian Bach had fallen into near obscurity since his death nearly 80 years earlier. This Easter-time Berlin presentation was a stunning success and was followed by others. By drawing us right into the shadow of the Cross and prying open our hearts to Christ’s agony there, he invites us to share in it as fully as possible. Chris and his wife, Bea, live at The Mount, a Bruderhof in Esopus, New York. In the same sequence, a flurry of chords dissipating in different directions illustrates Christ’s words about the scattering of his flock. Whereas Picander designates Choir I as “the Daughters of Zion” (Jesus’s contemporaries) he marks Choir II as “The Faithful” – us latter-day witnesses to his death. It is said to be the greatest peice of sacred classical music ever written. Whereas the recitatives and arias dramatize the agony of Gethsemane and Golgotha, the chorales give one a chance to “breathe in,” as it were, and respond on an even more personal level to the unfolding story. English language (This is because most religious music was performed in churches. Leaving the cyber-world for the real, it’s much the same. There was no room for a stage, and no time for scene changes.). 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