Bach : Passion selon Saint Matthieu

HOLY WEEK Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Passion selon saint Matthieu Saturday 27 March, 19hSunday 28 March, 15h Chapelle Royale Concert in German, with French surtitles

Duration: 3h10 including interval

La Passion selon saint Matthieu, the peak of Bach's output, was probably first performed on Good Friday. The year 1727 at Saint-Thomas de Leipzig has haunted the history of music for nearly three centuries. Performed several times during Bach's lifetime, it was the spearhead of the rediscovery of Bach in the 19th century. Nearly a century after its first performance, Felix Mendelssohn performed a version in Berlin, restoring Bach to the first rank of Germany's musical heritage, where he has remained ever since.

Drawing on St Matthew's account, far more developed than that of St John, the librettist Picander composed twenty-eight madrigal-style scenes. Among these and the Gospel passages, Bach introduced twelve harmonised chorales, with hymns inserted at numbers 1 and 25, and the great chorale that closes the first part.

The presence of a double choir is one of the principal distinguishing features of this Passion. It is what heightens the dramatic power of the work, with scenes of action involving the principal protagonists but also the crowd, at once witness and participant in the drama. Bach's achievement cannot be compared with other German Passions of the period, which were far more restrained and conventional. We are here closer to a great biblical oratorio, such as Handel composed at the same time in England, with alternating arias and chorales, describing and commenting both on the events of the Passion and on the religious sentiments they inspired: indignation, piety, grief. This is the pinnacle of baroque rhetoric; the urgency of the drama is more palpable than ever.