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. Indeed, it is clear that his devotion to Christ was deep and personal. Seen from a distance, the two ensembles, each visually dominated by a large number of singers, do indeed look equal. Buy download online. Listen to excerpt 10, which depicts the whole sequence of Peter’s betrayal, and ends with him weeping. 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. Specific actors – Pilate, the High Priest, Judas, the crowd – have roles too. 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. . The St Matthew Passion performed by the Netherlands Bach Society for All of Bach. English language Obviously, our anguish is vicarious, limited to the realm of Bach’s (and our) imagination. Levang, Rex. 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. These performances would … 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. Still another is solid and confident, representing strength and faith. It prompts repentance, urging us to turn from vice toward freedom and salvation. Bach: Texts of Vocal Works in Translation, with Commentary This Easter-time Berlin presentation was a stunning success and was followed by others. 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. 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. 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. The St. Matthew Passion of Bach is a massive oratorio set for double chorus and orchestra, multiple soloists, and an Evangelist. Geiringer, Karl. The whole piece takes 3+ hours to perform but this 7 and a half minute section is … 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. It is said that silence is complicity. What followed two years later was an altogether grander, more magnificent setting. Highlights to look out for are the alto aria ‘Buss Und Reu’ (‘Penance And Remorse’), one for soprano, ‘Blute Nur, Du Liebes Herz! As Hans David Chris and his wife, Bea, live at The Mount, a Bruderhof in Esopus, New York. Written in 1727, the St. Matthew Passion represents a large-scale intersection of composition and Lutheran theology. “The St. Matthew Passion” – notes for Minnesota Public Radio, (2001) 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. 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. 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. In the 1740s, he began to go blind. Like operas, though, oratorios do have casts. Without guilt, forgiveness is meaningless, and without death – without Good Friday – there could not be possibly be such a thing as resurrection and the joy of Easter. This is a reference to Psalm 39, which contains the line, “I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked stand before me.”. 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. Conversations (1996-1998) Ross, Alex. . Discourses on historically accurate performing standards and instrumentation. The Joy of Music (2nd Edition) John Eliot Gardiner’s benchmark Archiv recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, which will be reissued on vinyl on 10 April 2020, was recorded back in 1989, a masterstroke that remains a milestone in the catalogue. This week we’ll explore music inspired by Good Friday and Easter, both sacred and secular. Matthäus-Passion Alt ernative. “Atonement: The St. Matthew Passion at the Armony,” The New Yorker, (Oct. 27, 2014) Indeed, his is a musical interpretation of the gospel of St. Matthew, and it makes for one of the great Matthew Passion recordings. Note that whereas Bach used the organ and other instruments to accompany most voices of the cast, he used strings alone as accompaniment whenever Jesus himself speaks, resulting in what Bernstein called a shimmering “halo” effect. 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). Scholars now agree that an early version was first heard two years earlier, a second version in 1729, a further revised version in 1736 and a final one – the one we hear today – in 1742. “What makes Gardiner’s St Matthew Passion stand out in the face of stiff competition is, more than anything, his vivid sense of theatre. Bach sometimes wrote “symmetrically” too: if the melody would go up or down by a certain interval, the bass line would mirror it by doing the opposite. 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. Little is known with certainty about the creation process of the St Matthew Passion. Explore our guide to Bach’s ‘St Matthew Passion’ widely regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of classical sacred music. 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. This not only varies and enhances the texture of the music, it also emphasizes the dialogic character of the poetry. 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. Title Historia des Leidens und Sterbens unseres Herrn und Heiland Jesu Christi nach dem Evangelisten Matthäus St Matthew Passion Composer Schütz, Heinrich: Opus/Catalogue Number Op./Cat. 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. IHS 89 Key G Dorian mode Year/Date of Composition Y/D of Comp. Preview bach aria erbarme dich from the st matthew passion bwv 244 arr for violin solo viola solo and string quartet optional mezzo soprano replaces viola sol is available in 6 pages and compose for intermediate difficulty. (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. Bach’s score is, after all, a sacred drama and Gardiner interprets this aspect of the work with lively and colourful conviction… Singing and playing of this calibre deserve to win many friends…’” – Gramophone. Bach’s first wife died in 1720, and he remarried the next year. “St. Bach revised the piece considerably several times, but the final performance during his lifetime, in 1749, was similar in form to the first version. Bach wrote his Passion to use both these performance spaces. 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. It is even written in two Parts (or two ‘Acts’) with an interval (indeed, for the work’s first performance a sermon was preached between the two Parts) – and that is one reason why its first performance in Leipzig met with decidedly mixed reactions. In the same sequence, a flurry of chords dissipating in different directions illustrates Christ’s words about the scattering of his flock. Is it really just the music drawing people? In a way, it’s hardly surprising. John Eliot Gardiner’s benchmark recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion can be bought here. Peter’s weeping, after his betrayal of Christ, is also vividly depicted by the vocal line Bach gives the soloist at that point in the story. (“In Nomine Jesu,” which means “In the name of Jesus”) or J.J. (“Jesu Juva,” which means “Help me, Jesus”). 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. In the St Matthew Passion, the strings play a long high chord whenever Jesus sings, setting his singing apart from the other singing like a musical 'halo'. 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. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his St. Matthew Passion for a single purpose — to present the Passion story in music at Good Friday vesper services. 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. And in the aria where the soprano sings about the scourging of Jesus, a harsh, rhythmic motif in the violin part represents Christ’s being lashed with a whip. Has anything else lasted, culturally speaking, from 1727 to the present? Johann Sebastian Bach is widely regarded the greatest musical genius of all time. 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. Unlike the opera, the best-known type of musical drama, the oratorio does not use costumes, makeup, or musicians who act while they sing. One can only imagine what St. Augustine, who agonized over the seductive dangers of chant, would make of it. In the case of the St. Matthew Passion, this devotion seems to have extended even to the care with which the text was shaped. 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. turbulence). Jens, Inge, ed. Even so, the experience is vital. The St. John Passion. This sort of turbulent, emotionally charged musical outcry is known as a “turba” (i.e. ⇒ 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! In the biblical text, vocal soloists portray Jesus, Pilate, other individual characters, and Matthew the Evangelist, delivering their narration and … 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. Bach did not act as his own librettist for the St Matthew Passion. Back to the composition of the music itself, Bach was also keenly aware that his talent was a gift. That’s the simple choral melody set above the swirling accompaniment. In the St. Matthew Passion, Bach indulges his gypsy soul. Gardiner, John Eliot. One setting of “O sacred head” is unrelievedly somber, as when Jesus has just been crucified. It is also, as Mendelssohn himself noted wryly, somewhat ironic that “it took an actor and the son of Jew to revive the greatest Christian music for the world!”. This music sheet has been read 4160 times and … Even the deepest aria – take, for instance, “Have mercy” – remains a solo, performed by one person; everyone else remains a listener. 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. The music is seductive, even voluptuous. J. S. Bach: Leben und Werk, Bd. It sets chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew (in Luther's German translation) to music, with chorales and arias. This moment in our country’s history demands a response. Among other duties, his post required him to instruct the members of the Thomanerchor (the boys’ choir of St. Thomas) in singing and in Latin, and to provide weekly music at both of these churches. We’ll start in one of the most sublime and powerful corners of J.S. Bach's Passion continues to … It’s not just a regional phenomenon. “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. Willcocks’s comments still hold good and this superb recording justifies them on purely musical grounds, with noticeably brisk tempi, lending a welcome light and nimble touch to proceedings. Stream songs including "St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, Pt. 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. It is composed in two parts, that were to be … Bach, written in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by picander. Gordon, David. The last “actor,” of course, is Jesus himself. Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven (2013) The speeches of various characters – Commentator (soprano), Evangelist (tenor), Christ (bass), Peter (bass), Judas (bass) and so forth – are represented by various solo singers. Program Notes J.S. Google “St. (There’s a whole book devoted to this subject called Bach and the Physics of Music.) Text"genres" Biblical%texts% Recitatives,%TurbaPchoruses% Freepoetry% Aria,%Choruses% Hymns%% Arias,%Hymnsettings% % Authors"of"free"poetry:% BartholdHeinrichBrockes% Unlike the opera, the best-known type of musical drama, the oratorio does not use costumes, makeup, or musicians who act while they sing. In another number, the oboe seems to represent Mary running first one way in the garden, and then the other, looking for Jesus. “Bach’s St. Matthew Passion” (2001) Each of these performances sold out quickly, despite tickets ranging from $30 to $80 apiece. And not just one orchestra – but two. The available information derives from extant early manuscripts, contemporary publications of the libretto, … 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. 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. 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. In short, you don’t need to understand it to be moved by it. We try to love our neighbor and share everything, so that peace and justice become a reality. Rather, the composer restricts himself to creating a drama whose full force comes to expression through the musical delivery. Thus, the score is laid out for Chorus 1 and Orchestra 1, Chorus 2 and Orchestra 2. 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. I keep trying to like “purist” performances including Gardner but I can’t mare up to them. In the end, perhaps it is Bach’s insistence on reminding us of this “whole Gospel” that gives his Passion such depth. But he then tells his mother that he did go to hear Bach’s “St. In consideration of the story to be told, the words are treated with great importance; one can see an … Listen to excerpts 12 and 13 - the last recitative, followed by the powerful closing chorus, “In tears of grief.”, Ambrose, Z. Philip. Wolff, Christoph. 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. Isoyama, Tadashi. Matthew Passion” (1999) 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. The best example is (again) the chorales, which often have similar (if not identical) melodies but are harmonized differently in order to evoke different emotions. Bernstein, Leonard. Many were written around Lutheran chorales, such as “Wake, awake” or “How brightly beams the morning star.”. In a book of letters by Hans and Sophie Scholl, the famous German siblings beheaded in 1943 for their outspoken resistance to Hitler, a letter from their mother, Magdalena, admonishes Hans not to forget the importance of receiving Communion at Easter. 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. 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. Based largely on gleanings from other sources (see the endnotes), they’re not especially original. Bach St Matthew Passion: Text, Translation and Musical Notes . 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. The St. Matthew Passion has been presented in staged performances. 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. A local Lutheran preacher, Salomon Deyling, supervised the writing of the text, using the 26th and 27th chapters of St Matthew’s Gospel (in his manuscript, Bach underlined the words of the Scripture with red ink). But... January 12, 2021 by Charles & Leslie Moore. There was no room for a stage, and no time for scene changes.) Until 1975, it was held that the first performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion was on Good Friday 1729. Matthew Passion” on Good Friday, and that it shattered him. He was only twenty, and a recent convert to Christianity. Our vocation is a life of service to God, each other, and you. In 1725, two years after he took up his appointment of cantor at St. Thomas’s, he wrote the Passion According To St. John. The new pressing from original sources is on 180gm vinyl and, to enhance audio quality, no side exceeds 30 minutes. His second wife, Anna Magdalena, was a singer, and bore him thirteen more children. The LP comes with a two-page leaflet and original liner notes by Sir John in English and German. Schweitzer, Albert. Every note is performed in … 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). 1: No. (‘Passion’ is derived from the Latin verb ‘patior’ meaning ‘to suffer’ or ‘endure’, from which we also get ‘patience’ and ‘patient’.) But what should it be? In the second, which follows the crowd’s shouts of “Let him be crucified!” the crucifixion has become a concrete reality. Voices is a blog by Bruderhof members, covering topics important to us and to you. The view of the St. Matthew Passion as a symmetrical double-chorus work has arisen largely from the experience of modern performances that use distinct soloists and two large choirs. 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 the first instance, the text refers to Christ’s prediction of his sufferings. To hear both examples, listen to excerpt 8. (‘Passion’ is derived from the Latin verb ‘patior’ meaning ‘to suffer’ or ‘endure’, from which we also get ‘patience’ and ‘patient’.) Listen to John Eliot Gardiner’s benchmark recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion right now. J.S. Look at any big city newspaper around Easter, and you’re sure to find a performance advertised somewhere. For a specific example relating to Bach, there’s Paul Simon’s song “American Tune,” which is almost identical to “O Sacred Head.”. We are an intentional Christian community of more than 3,000 people living in twenty-eight settlements on four continents. The solo vocal and multipart choral styles of Italian Baroque music were strongly influential in Germany. Note Bach’s use of a most simple, childlike tune – an old French street song that recalls “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.” Listen to excerpt 1 – “Come ye daughters.”, St. Matthew Passion is an oratorio, which is a musical drama. Versions and contemporaneous performances. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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