Bach : Passion selon Saint Matthieu

HOLY WEEK Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) St Matthew Passion Saturday 27 March, 7pmSunday 28 March, 3pm Chapelle Royale Concert in German with French surtitles Duration: 3h10 including interval The St Matthew Passion, a pinnacle of Bach's work, was probably premiered on a Good Friday.

The year 1727 at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig has haunted music history for nearly three centuries. Performed several times during Bach's lifetime, it spearheaded the rediscovery of Bach in the 19th century.

Nearly a hundred years after its creation, Felix Mendelssohn performed a version of it in Berlin, restoring Bach to the forefront of German musical heritage, where he has remained ever since.

Based on St Matthew's account, which is much more developed than St John's, the librettist Picander composed twenty-eight madrigal-like scenes.

Among these and the evangelical sections, Bach introduced twelve harmonised chorales with hymns inserted at numbers 1 and 25 and the great chorale concluding the first part. The presence of a double choir is one of the main distinguishing elements of this Passion.

This reinforces the dramatic power of the work, with action scenes featuring the main protagonists but also the crowd, both witness and actor in the drama.

The result achieved by Bach cannot be compared to other German Passions of the time, which were much more measured and conventional.

Here we are closer to a great biblical oratorio, such as Handel composed at the same time in England, with an alternation of arias and chorales, both describing and commenting on the events of the Passion and the religious sentiments it inspired: indignation, piety, sorrow.

We are at the peak of Baroque rhetoric; the urgency of the drama is more palpable than ever. The Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal serves Bach's music with the fervour of the Soloists and Choir of the Tölzer Knabenchor, who are accustomed to this repertoire that children sing in their