Post Description

Recorded at Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh, UK: 3rd-6th September 2007. 
Engineered by Philip Hobbs.
Post-Production by Julia Thomas at Finesplice Ltd.
Sleeve design by John Haxby. 

John Butt - Director 

Nicholas Mulroy - Evangelist
Matthew Brook - Jesus

Susan Hamilton - soprano
Cecilia Osmond - soprano
Clare Wilkinson - alto
Annie Gill - alto
Malcolm Bennett - tenor
Brian Bannatyne-Scott - bass
  

Bach's Matthew Passion 

The Passion story was represented in a musical-dramatic tradition well before the invention of opera and oratorio. But it was only a matter of time before these later dramatic genres would cross-fertilize with the earlier traditions. This began to happen towards the end of the seventeenth century as librettists and composers increasingly embellished the Gospel texts with free arias, meditations and demanding obbligati. Many composers sought to capitalize on the operatic conventions that congregations would have experienced in the world of secular entertainment. Nevertheless, the Passion in oratorio style did not arrive in Leipzig until 1717 (at the modish Neue-Kirche), and the ageing Johann Kuhnau did not introduce an Oratorio Passion at the Cantorate of the Thomasschule until 1721, thus shortly before Bach himself came to Leipzig (1723). So, one of the greatest ironies about Bach's Passions is that their original audiences were far less familiar with the genre than we are; moreover - as is the case with all Bach's most celebrated music - we might have heard them many more times than did the original performers or even Bach himself. 

Bach's Passions were performed during the afternoon Vesper service on Good Friday, their two parts replacing the cantata and Magnificat which were normally presented on either side of the sermon. Like Bach's cantatas, the Passions assimilate something of the sermon's function, since the free poetry of the arias, ariosos and framing choruses provide both a commentary and an emotional interpretation of the biblical text in the world of the listener. This is something quite different from the function of an aria in opera, which normally develops a specific character within the represented world. But it is not difficult to understand some of the complaints about the new Passion genre from congregations in Lutheran Germany; Passions do, after all, borrow liberally from secular conventions such as dance and, particularly, opera. 

Particularly striking in the construction of both the free poetry (by the Leipzig poet, Christian Friedrich Henrici, or ‘Picander') and Bach's musical setting is the emphasis on dialogue form - necessitating the performing format of double chorus and orchestra. This rhetorical device allows for contrasting or even opposing moods to be presented simultaneously (e.g. ‘So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen'/‘Laßt ihn, haltet, bindet nicht!'), complementary viewpoints (‘Ach, nun ist mein Jesu hin'/‘Wo ist denn dein Freund hingegangen') or a dialogue between a single speaker and a group (‘Ich will bei meinem Jesu wachen'/‘So schlafen unsre Sünden ein'). All of these devices serve to personify the various ‘voices' within a single listener, acting out one's own reactions and conflicts. 

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