Monday Morning Music Ministry

4-8-20

It is a Christmas tradition to burn the Yule log in the fireplace… or, more likely these days, watch a video loop on TV. Take a rest from preps, sack out with egg nog, stare at the log…

I suggest we do a similar thing this week, before Easter, but with more purpose and reward. Besides: we are quarantined. What I suggest is perfect for these days.

The Coronavirus has us in a contemplative mood, anyway — or should — and here is the perfect storm. To think about what really matters in our lives and families… and to think about the most important spiritual matters we can face.

I recommend two musical presentations of Holy Week — the “Passion” of Jesus Christ; His arrest, persecution, trial, torture, and death on the cross. As many people traditionally listen to Handel’s “Messiah” at Christmas, these pieces should be more familiar to us.
The St John Passion and St Matthew Passion were written by Johann Sebastian Bach almost 300 years ago. The greatest story ever told, by the greatest composer who ever lived. Utterly profound.

Bach used instruments, choir, and soloists to tell the story — narrators; singers in the roles of Jesus, Pilate, and all; but no costumes or drama… beyond the words themselves, many straight from the Gospel accounts. Matthew stressed the unfolding events; John focused on the personalities, and the love of Jesus.

I recommend these versions, maybe the best on video for all the unique reasons for contemplation: Karl Richter (with the Munich Bach Orchestra and Choir) was one of the supreme interpreters of Bach; famous and talented soloists; and… the video productions are works of art in themselves.

The “St John” interpolates views of the singers and musicians in church with ancient works of art depicting the events of that week.

The “St Matthew” is an astonishing presentation — a stark performance stage, with an huge cross hanging from the ceiling, subtly changing its position according to the portion of the story; changes from bright light to dark shadows; singers facing front or each other, and soloists mirroring their characters’ words throughout. Stunning and meaningful.

Both versions have English subtitles.

I wrote a book on Bach about a decade ago, joining a long line of people grateful that he ever lived. History has called him “The Fifth Evangelist” — not a pope; not Luther. He was a Bible scholar and teacher, not merely (?) the greatest musical figure of the human race. His music is supernal, still. And never more powerfully than in his two Passions (and his Mass in b minor) (and his Magnificat) (and more than 200 cantatas)… You get the point.

But try to set aside time, for yourself and your family, to watch, listen and meditate. Especially this week — to focus on the One who sacrificed Himself that we might not know death, but have eternal life.

St Matthew Passion: click here

St John Passion: click here

4-3-15

Some non-Christians, and many Christians, are a little confused about the term “Passion” when describing the final week of Jesus’s earthly life, the pre-risen Savior. Normally, being passionate is a good thing, something we all seek or endorse.

In fact Passion is from the Latin, patere, meaning to suffer. It describes an emotion at the extremities of enthusiasm or sorrow. Diderot, father of the modern dictionary concept, described Passion as “penchants, inclinations, desires, and aversions carried to a certain degree of intensity, combined with an indistinct sensation of pleasure or pain.” The fine line between joy and aversion, desire and rejection. (The passion fruit is not a putative aphrodisiac; when sliced in half, the pulp encases seeds bundled in the shape of a cross.)

Advising students, “Be passionate about what you pursue,” and Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ are different sides of the very same coin.

And so, on Holy Week, we may pause at the supernal St Matthew Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach. Listen to it. Learn from it. For Holy Week vespers services, Bach wrote the St Matthew Passion, performed in Leipzig’s St Thomas and St Nicholas churches on alternate years, for decades. He periodically made improvements to this, possibly his most favored of approximately 1800 works he composed.

Bach employed a “surround-sound” structure in the St Matthew Passion:
stereophony. At St Thomas Church, certain movements were performed from the
east organ loft, the “swallow’s nest” opposite the main musician’s gallery at the
west end of the church, a double-choir structure “that produced a splendid and
festive effect.” Smaller groups of musicians and singers performed from the church’s many corners; worshipers heard music coming from every direction.

The structure of Bach’s Passions were strictly traditional; he changed little of the form he inherited. The straight biblical narrative was distributed among soloists (evangelists and various soliloquentes, or individual speakers including Jesus, Peter, Pilate, et al) and choirs (various turbae or crowds: high priests, Roman soldiers, Jews, etc). The Passion’s flow was dotted by narration, hymn strophes, and contemplative lyrics, “madrigal pieces” of free verse, mainly delivered as arias. One can begin to appreciate the spectacle that audiences beheld: a combination of church and theater, Greek-style drama and opera, music and voice, costume and acting.

Bach revised the St Matthew Passion several times through the years (his best works were repeated in his churches, and performed elsewhere, just as he occasionally performed works of esteemed contemporaries), and, of his manuscript scores that survive today, none bears such respect as St Matthew. In 1736, at least, he considered it his most significant work. His autograph score shows loving attention, written in red or brown inks according to the biblical and dramatic libretto sources; calligraphy in careful Gothic or Latin letters; and preserved as an heirloom. In fact it appears that a later accident, perhaps a spill, damaged portions of some pages, and Bach lovingly repaired those sections with paste-overs.

For half a century after Bach’s death his musical style was out of style, and he slipped into relative obscurity. Eventually, however, the floodgates opened. The great German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe discovered Bach’s music and described it: “Eternal harmony carries on a dialogue with itself on what God felt in his bosom shortly before the creation of the world.” The composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, a Lutheran converted from Judaism, was awestruck by the St Matthew Passion and staged a legendary performance on Good Friday, 1829. Its revival was repeated, and Mendelssohn brought his enthusiasm for Bach to England, where Felix was a favorite of the German-descended Queen Victoria (of Saxon and Hanoverian royalty).

Since then it is performed regularly, everywhere and at any time through the year. However, it is most appropriate during Holy Week. Its parts were performed on
separate nights of daily services between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, each re-creating the events of Holy Week – Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem; the contention with the Jewish Sanhedrin and Roman authorities; the Last Supper; His betrayal; the trials and persecution; the Crucifixion.

… The Passion that Christ endured for us, willingly taking on Himself the punishment and death we deserve as sinners who have separated ourselves from God.

As I have recommended before, if you are a person who listens to traditional hymns or Handel’s Messiah at Christmastime, or even if you are not, you will profit from setting some time aside and listening to Bach’s St Matthew Passion, and absorb its musical grandeur, its setting, its cultural history… its meaning. No less today than when it was first performed 275 years ago. Or when events took place, 2000 years ago.

Bach took the same care that the early evangelists, or recipients of their Epistles, might have shown to ancient events and texts. It is notable that history came to call Bach “The Fifth Evangelist,” the accolade bypassing even his spiritual mentor Martin Luther.

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A performance of the Passion based on St Matthew’s Gospel. The great Bach interpreter Karl Richter conducts the Munich Bach Orchestra and the Munich Bach Choir. With English subtitles. This production is a work of art in itself: an appropriately bleak but very expressive setting. The cross, overhead the performers, grows lighter and darker responding to the dramatic narrative.

Click: Bach’s “St Matthew Passion”