On Saturday evening, appropriately enough on the eve of Palm Sunday, I attended a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, given by the Dunedin Consort, directed by John Butt, in the New Auditorium of Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. It occurred to me that the last time I encountered this huge masterpiece at close quarters, I was actually playing my viola in the orchestra, in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. Herrick Bunney conducted; the composer Kenneth Leighton was at the harpsichord, and the evangelist was none other than the great Peter Pears. What a privilege to be a part of that.
The Dunedin Consort were magnificent. The forces were quite small: two orchestras to left and right of the director, each comprising four violins, a viola, a cello (or viola da gamba), double bass, two flutes, and two oboes. Additionally there was an organ placed centrally opposite the director, who conducted also from the organ. The choir was made up entirely of eight soloists: two sopranos, a mezzo, a countertenor, two tenors, and two bass-baritones. In addition, during Part 1, the RSNO Youth Chorus made contributions from a gallery above the orchestra, and the ensemble was completed by an unobtrusive – but remarkably expressive – sign language interpreter. The work was sung in German.
It’s a lengthy work; we started at 7.00 pm, had a short break half-way, and it was after 10.00 when we finished. Yet it passed in a flash. The orchestra took much time, and devoted a great deal of close attention, to tuning up, but once they got going there was nae hingin’ aboot, and the rapidity of the events depicted enhanced the sense of intense drama. Of course the music is utterly inspired, and very beautiful, but there’s no denying an atmosphere of austerity (these plangent oboes!) and a sense of impending and inevitable tragedy in the unfolding of the story, bookended by the great choruses Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen, and Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder.
Much of the Matthew Passion concerns fickleness, and human frailty. Peter disowns Jesus three times, and when the cock crows, he is consumed with shame, and grief. Erbame dich, Mein Gott, um meiner Zähren willen! Judas betrays Jesus, but when he sees him condemned to death, he is filled with remorse, and tries to return the blood money, thirty pieces of silver. The chief priests couldn’t care less. Judas promptly goes out and hangs himself. Pontius Pilate knows Jesus is without fault. His wife tells him to have nothing to do with condemning an innocent man. He offers to free either Jesus or Barabbas, a murderer. The mob want Barabbas. So what, asks Pilate, should I do with Jesus?
Laß ihn kreuzigen!
The crowd is most fickle of all, the same crowd who welcomed Jesus, seated on a donkey, to the streets of Jerusalem, strewn with palm leaves. I have a notion that Bach had some compassion for Peter, and Judas, and Pilate, but that he really didn’t care for the crowd. Their protestations become even more baleful in the St John Passion.
Pilate is cornered. He washes his hands of the matter. There’s no going back. The end is inevitable. Thank goodness Bach offers us some respite in that most beautiful of bass arias, Mache dich mein Herze, rein.
It’s impossible to hear this great unfolding drama without putting it in the context of the world as it is today. President Putin appears to be gearing up for a Spring Offensive. A Russian missile attack killed at least 34 civilians in Sumy, Ukraine, on Palm Sunday. The Polish Foreign Minister has said that Russia is mocking the USA’s attempts to broker peace. President Zelenskyy has invited President Trump to Ukraine, to see the destruction for himself. I have a notion – though I’d like to be proved wrong – that he won’t take up the offer, because what he would see would not fit with his own “narrative”. In this respect he is like Pilate, who said “What is truth?” – but would not wait for an answer. Meanwhile Israel has bombed the last functioning hospital in Gaza. Trump is waging a trade war with China, whose effects will pretty soon be felt by everyman, and woman, in “Main St”, across the world.
As a species, we don’t seem to be able to get past war, of one kind or another, so-called “discretionary” war, as an instrument of policy. We don’t seem to want to find a better way of all getting along together. This is why the Matthew remains so relevant. And whenever I hear the latest bad news from the Middle East, I always think of the profoundly unsettling opening – these plangent oboes again – to the St John. But that’s another Passion.
jamescalumcampbell 