Golgotha by Frank Martin

[JimD]

Is anyone familiar with this work, due to be broadcast on Good Friday? If so, any views?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01074j8

I notice that the webpage says 'Part 1', but I cannot see Part 2.

[BBMmk2]

I should think this composition be one to watch out for, if his Mass for Double Choir is anything to go by!

[salymap]

I thought I heard and taped it from the radio years ago but no sign of tape. I've just been through the wonderful Proms Archive, but it wasn't in a Prom apparently. Sorry.

I'm glad my long term memory hasn't altogether gone. In the Sargent Biography by Charles Reid,mention is made of a performance by Sargent and the BBCSO, not at the Proms but the orchestra's winter series, either at the RAH or the RFH after 1951.

Now I wonder whether anyone on these MBs either played in or heard that performance, also did Auntie keep it? It must have been too much for me at 20 plus and it was deleted.

[Roehre]

Is anyone familiar with this work, due to be broadcast on Good Friday? If so, any views?

Jim,

It is an austere Martin -even more than usual I'd say-, but a testament of its time (composed 1945-1948), and IMO one of most gripping Passions after JSBach' St.Matthew. Martin uses texts from all four Gospels. The solo bariton sings the words of Christ. The other soloists and the choir do all the other texts, just as in JSBach's Passions. The text is set very dramatically, but IMO the greatest hights are reached in the more contemplative stretches, based on St.Augustine's writings (a link here, not only textually !, with Tippett).

The original text is French, though German as well as English translations seem to exist. I haven't heard any of these non-French performances, but they are mentioned in Martin's wife's memoirs.

It is a work which need a couple of hearings, as there is a lot going on underneath if you like (the already mentioned meditations e.g.), and to record it is helpful it this case. It is a pity that the BBC only has programmed part I, the whole work lasts slighty over 90 minutes.

I was lucky enough to have heard it performed live, was very impressed, and as soon as I found a recording (that was before the internet became really took offl), I bought it immediately (Erato, now AFAIK available on a budget 2CD set: 3984-24237-2, coupled with the Mass mentioned by BBM)

[Flosshilde]

I think it was broadcast last Easter - I think a recording was reviewed on CD review. I'm pretty sure I heard a discussion about it. Is there a CD review archive?

[JimD]

It is a pity that the BBC only has programmed part I, the whole work lasts slighty over 90 minutes.

Thanks for this Roehre. I notice that the (live) broadcast is scheduled for 2hours 15 minures, which suggests that the reference to Part 1 only is a mistake. Slightly surprisingly, several recordings are listed on MDT, so it appears to have made some impact. Certainly sounds as if it is worth some attention.

[Chris Newman]

I have heard a few bits of Frank Martin over the years. I recall Giulini conducting the Double Mass and the Maria Triptychon in St Paul's Cathedral with the Philharmonia and on the Third Programme with Swiss Radio Forces. After an evening of Tippett (King Priam) I am listeninbg to Golgotha. Oh what a beautiful work. It is now 0030: I know I should go to bed but cannot. It is like the best bits of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande being given an extraordinary extra special significance. I am not religious but I know Frank Martin was and this work sounds divine...I mean that. The Bach Passions have that effect on me. I hope that this performance with superb artists will bring about a revival of the love of Frank Martin's music. It is especially good to hear Christopher Gillett the tenor in this work, who also sang Hermes in the Tippett opera I listened to and watched earlier. 26 years later he is amazing.

[MickyD]

Just a reminder that there is a relatively new recording of this work out on Harmonia Mundi - it got rave reviews on its release:

http://www.amazon.fr/Golgotha-Franck-Martin/dp/B003064CXC/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1303623051&sr=1-1

[BBMmk2]

The above recording is also available from www.amazon.co.uk, priced £18.82

[JimD]

It is like the best bits of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande being given an extraordinary extra special significance.

Maybe a synthesis of Debussy and Messiaen?

[Mary Chambers]

The tenor Christopher Gillett has a good blog, http://http://saddoabroad.blogspot.com/ . He's also very entertaining on Twitter.

[lordmhoram]

I recorded the performance on Friday but haven't listened to it as yet. It was mentioned on CD Review some time ago (I hadn't heard of it until then.) They played a substantial chunk of it: I was very impressed indeed (but then I normally am when I hear anything by Martin - a superb and (like so many others) scandalously underrated composer.)

[Chris Newman]

On reflection, I think there are a couple of Proms that could be well replaced by "Golgotha".

Mary, thanks for the link to Christopher Gillett's blog. What a hoot he is, with delightful but very affectionate indiscretions about Bob Tear. I am tempted by his book.

[George]

I still remember Martin's "Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann" with Thomas Hemsley and the BBCSO conducted by Walter Susskind from the 1978 Proms. Only £4 for DFD, now on Brilliant.

[bluestateprommer]

I managed to catch the Good Friday iPlayer archived radiocast of FM's Golgotha just in time. The performance was very fine, and it was touching to know that Martin's widow, Maria Martin, journeyed from Amsterdam to be in the audience that night, as noted by Catherine Bott on R3 and also in Andrew Clements' Guardian review.

I remember hearing the work for the first time on the old Erato recording in college, and being really impressed with it that I could remember. When I returned to the work on record many years later, the new harmonia mundi recording, I have to confess that I was less impressed with the work, since I noticed more that the emotional range tended to feel rather constricted and the overall pace of the work seemed too much stuck in the same gear, which made the more dramatic ("faster") passages something of a relief. But chances to hear the work live, whether in person or by proxy, are rare enough, so I was fortunate to listen to it while it will still on iPlayer.

BTW, regarding the 1950's era performance with Malcolm Sargent conducting, this link to a scanned copy of the January 1956 Musical Times indicates that the BBC SO/Sargent performance was at the Royal Festival Hall on November 9, 1955:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/938557?seq=2

If the above link doesn't work, besides the BBC SO, and the BBC Chorus and BBC Choral Society, the soloists were Joan Sutherland, Marjorie Thomas, Walter Midgley, Gwyn Griffiths and Trevor Anthony.