Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion, the summit of his oeuvre, was probably first performed on a Good Friday. The year 1727 at St. Thomas Church has haunted the history of music for nearly three centuries. Performed several times during Bach’s lifetime, it became the driving force behind the rediscovery of Bach in the nineteenth century. Nearly one hundred years after its premiere, Felix Mendelssohn conducted a version in Berlin, restoring Bach to the foremost place in the German musical heritage, where he has remained ever since.

Drawing on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, far more developed than that of Saint John, the librettist Picander composed twenty-eight madrigalian scenes. Between these and the evangelical passages, Bach inserted twelve harmonized chorales, together with hymns included in numbers 1 and 25, and the great chorale that concludes Part One.

The presence of a double choir is one of the principal distinguishing features of this Passion. It heightens the dramatic power of the work, with scenes involving not only the main protagonists but also the crowd, both witness to and participant in the drama. The result achieved by Bach cannot be compared with the other German Passions of the period, which were far more restrained and conventional. We are here much closer to a grand biblical oratorio, such as those composed by George Frideric Handel in England at the same time, with an alternation of arias and chorales describing and commenting both on the events of the Passion and on the religious emotions they inspired: indignation, piety, and sorrow. We are at the height of Baroque rhetoric, and the urgency of the drama is more palpable than ever.

The Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal performs Bach’s music with the fervour of the soloists and choir of the Tölzer Knabenchor, thoroughly steeped in this repertoire, which the children sing in their mother tongue!

Royal Opera Productions

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