March 19th 2005
St Matthew Passion, J.S. Bach – sung in English

7:00pm (earlier than usual), St Peter's Church, Acton Green, Southfield Road, Chiswick, London, W4

• Stephen Foulkes – Christus
• Deryck Webb – Evangelist
• Lesley-Jane Rogers – Soprano
• Louise Tucker – Mezzo Soprano
• Russell Scott – Bass

Please note that tickets prices are £12.00, or £10.00 for concessions, available at the door.

With the recent spotlight on Mendelssohn's historic "revival" version of the Saint Matthew Passion, audiences might be forgiven for thinking that this masterpiece, now frequently performed in our concert halls, was originally conceived as a concert work. Of course, like Bach's cycles of Church Cantatas, the settings of the Passion story (in the versions according to St. Matthew, St. John and St. Luke) were composed to be performed as an integral part of the Good Friday "Hauptgottesdienst" in one of Leipzig's major churches. Given that a full performance of Bach's music for the Saint Matthew Passion take almost three and a half hours, one can judge the length of the service that contained additional motets, other music as well as an hour long sermon.

The tradition of singing, rather than speaking the Gospel appointed for the day's mass goes back centuries to the early church. Singing enabled the priest's voice to be amplified for the benefit of his congregation. In Holy week, from Palm Sunday, the appointed Gospels for the daily Mass were the Passion narratives as related by the four Evangelists. In the pre-Renaissance church, the words were sung to simple plainchants by three people; the main narrative by a middle voice (tenor), the part of Jesus by a bass, and the remaining parts, including the words of the crowd, by a high (alto) voice. These plainchant versions are wonderfully effecting when sung well.

During the Renaissance, with its development of polyphony, the words of the crowd (or turba) were set for acappella choir. These settings known as Dramatic or Liturgical Passions were composed by such men as Lassus, Byrd and Victoria. But these settings are a long way from the fully composed "Oratorio Passions" of the 18th century. To arrive at these we need to go to the Reformation and take a brief look at the development of sacred music within the tradition of the Lutheran Church. Most importantly we should look at the work of one of the greatest composers prior to Bach, Heinrich Schütz.

Schütz's career was spent almost entirely at the court of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden. His early years as a composer were spent in Venice studying with Giovanni Gabrieli, where he absorbed much of the exciting new poly choral style. His setting of "The Seven Last Words" requires a chorus, five solo singers, instruments and continuo. While this work might be regarded as a forerunner of Bach's Passions, Schütz's own settings of the Gospel narratives are severe and solemn. The immediate antecedents to Bach's work in this form are the Passion Oratorios which emanated from Hamburg where sacred operas were popular; Hamburg's first opera house opened with an opera based upon the story of Adam and Eve. The Passion Oratorios were an extension if this kind of work with poetic verses commenting on the passion story interpolated into the sacred text.

When Bach arrived in Leipzig, the tradition of performing an Oratorio setting of the Passion story had already been founded by his predecessor Johann Kuhnau, whose St Mark Passion was performed in 1721. Leipzig, a centre of strict Lutheran orthodoxy, was hardly prepared for Bach's dramatic musical settings; indeed Bach, on his appointment to the position of Cantor at the Thomaskirche, was asked to "make compositions that were not theatrical", an injunction which he can hardly be said to have followed. What must that first congregation in 1729 have made of the choral cry at the name "Barabbas"?

As mentioned at the beginning of this note, the Saint Matthew Passion was composed for liturgical performance. Bach was an extremely devout man and this work, in my opinion, is the summit of his work as a Christian composer. While it is a spiritual piece, it is also highly dramatic; this work is indeed, in some parts, "theatrical". The great crowd choruses are an obvious point, but even in the recitatives, Bach shows himself a vivid story teller and the beautiful arias are truly emotional comments upon the narrative. It is an interesting speculation to wonder what Bach and Handel might have written had they been born in opposite circumstances, following different careers. What might Bach have written faced with the operatic demands of Hamburg and London? And how might Handel have responded to the princely demands of Lutheran and Calvinistic courts or the Lutheran churches of Leipzig?

Bach's great Passion settings respond to the text with all the life, vitality and emotion of a composer completely caught up in the devotional and dramatic aspects of the narrative. We hear this in every bar of the choral and solo vocal music. Importantly, we find this commitment also in Bach's arrangements of the Chorales or Hymns that are placed at significant points in the work. Scholars are divided in their opinions as to the congregation's participation in the performance of these. Some are certainly rather higher in tessitura than might be expected of a congregation and some more complex and chromatic in harmony for an average congregation to follow. However, for this evening's performance, we are following the precedent set by the great Dr. Paul Steinitz, whose annual performances of the Saint Matthew at the church of St. Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield were, for many years, notable events in London's concert calendar. Dr. Steinitz always invited his audience / congregation to take part in the performance of a selected a group of chorales. We are doing the same, providing you with the words and music of certain numbers. My experience is that this involvement of the audience / congregation adds a dimension to the performance which is intensely moving.