St Matthew Passion, Bach’s crowning achievement, was probably premièred on Good Friday. The year 1727 at St. Thomas’s in Leipzig has haunted music history for almost three centuries. Played several times during Bach’s lifetime, it spearheaded the rediscovery of Bach in the 19^th century. Almost one hundred years after its premiere, Felix Mendelssohn performed a version in Berlin, placing Bach back at the forefront of German musical heritage, where it has remained ever since.

Based on the story of St. Matthew, which is much more developed than that of St. John, the librettist Picander composed twenty-eight madrigal scenes. Among these and the gospel parts, Bach introduced twelve harmonised chorales with hymns inserted at numbers 1 and 25 and the grand chorale ending the first part.

The presence of a double chorus is one of the main distinguishing features of this Passion. This is what reinforces the dramatic power of the work, with action scenes featuring the main protagonists of the Passion but also the crowd, both witness to and actor in the drama. The result achieved by Bach cannot be compared with other German passions of the time, which were much more measured and conventional. Here we are closer to a great biblical oratorio, as composed by Handel around the same period in England, with alternating arias and chorales, describing and commenting on both the events of the passion and the religious feelings it inspired: indignation, piety, and grief. We are at the height of Baroque rhetoric, and the urgency of the drama is more perceptible than ever.

Pygmalion’s choir and orchestra serve Bach’s music with fervour, creating an intense moment of power and purity.

Concert in German with French surtitles.

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