Prom 49 - 20.08.17: Bach’s St John Passion

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:45 Sunday 20 August 2017 ON TV
Royal Albert Hall

Johann Sebastian Bach: St John Passion

Nicholas Mulroy, Evangelist
Matthew Brook, Jesus
Sophie Bevan, soprano
Tim Mead, countertenor
Andrew Tortise, tenor
Konstantin Wolff, bass
Dunedin Consort
John Butt, conductor

The climax of the Proms Reformation Day is a complete performance of Bach's St John Passion. 'More daring, forceful and poetic' than the St Matthew Passion, according to Schumann, this is a work of almost operatic vividness that brings both a humanity and a painful immediacy to the Passion narrative. Bach specialist John Butt and his Dunedin Consort make their Proms debut in a performance that offers the audience the chance to join in the chorale-singing, reflecting how the work might originally have been heard in a church setting.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Three numbered Proms on one day. Is this a record?

This concert reminds me of the first time I heard St John Passion in concert. I was 18 and still at school. One of our music teachers had recently started teaching, having graduated from Leeds University. She suggested her A-level music candidates went to this student performance in Leeds, with Gerald English as the Evangelist. For the chorales, the audience was given the full SATB music along with the words, so we really did feel part of the performance.

[PhilipT]

Three numbered Proms on one day. Is this a record?

No. There were three numbered Proms on "Stravinsky Day" several years ago.

[gurnemanz]

This concert reminds me of the first time I heard St John Passion in concert. I was 18 and still at school. One of our music teachers had recently started teaching, having graduated from Leeds University. She suggested her A-level music candidates went to this student performance in Leeds, with Gerald English as the Evangelist. For the chorales, the audience was given the full SATB music along with the words, so we really did feel part of the performance.

The last and only time I have heard the St John live was in St Thomas's, Leipzig, Easter 1973 with the Thomanerchor and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. My memories are of an impressive performance and setting (and quite hard wooden pews to sit on). The first performance was in the nearby Nikolaikirche. I won't make it to the concert on Sunday but shall certainly be tuning in. Looking forward to Konstantin Wolff, a fine bass, whom I got to know via his excellent contribution to the Naxos Complete Schubert Lieder..

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Some great playing and singing here, but the sound balance on television is very poor. The solo violinist might as well have no resin on her bow, while the vocal soloists are tastelessly amplified.

[Tony Halstead]

Some great playing and singing here, but the sound balance on television is very poor. The solo violinist might as well have no resin on her bow, while the vocal soloists are tastelessly amplified.

Yes maybe so, but the actual quality of the performance is superb. Wonderful singing in particular from N. Mulroy, and the chorales are what I would describe as 'incandescent'!

[Tony Halstead]

Some great playing and singing here, but the sound balance on television is very poor. The solo violinist might as well have no resin on her bow, while the vocal soloists are tastelessly amplified.

THe 'solo violinist' was actually playing a duet (with mutes on) with the principal 2nd violinist, 'pretending to be a Viola d'amore'!
Why on earth the performance couldn't have employed the 2 'd'amore' players specified by JSB is something to ponder on... Maybe viola d'amore players are too expensive for the BBC? In the immortal words of Private Eye: 'We should be told'!

[Ein Heldenleben]

That was wonderful - beyond words really . What an extraordinary weekend of music starting with Friday's Mahler. Thanks to the rain today I think I caught virtually all of it - including this morning's superb organ recital.

[cloughie]

THe 'solo violinist' was actually playing a duet (with mutes on) with the principal 2nd violinist, 'pretending to be a Viola d'amore'!
Why on earth the performance couldn't have employed the 2 'd'amore' players specified by JSB is something to ponder on... Maybe viola d'amore players are too expensive for the BBC? In the immortal words of Private Eye: 'We should be told'!

Enjoyed the performance on R3 - I think SMP did a good not over effusive announcing job (there are those quick to criticise when it's not good so let's be positive also!).

[jean]

How extraordinary to slip in the Jakob Handl Ecce quomodo moritur iustus at the end!

It is a wonderful piece - but would it really have been sung in a Lutheran context so long after the composer's death?

I have noticed a similarity between it and Their bodies are buried in peace from (G F) Handel's Israel in Egypt but nobody has ever confirmed that I'm not imagining it.

[Caussade]

How extraordinary to slip in the Jakob Handl Ecce quomodo moritur iustus at the end!

It is a wonderful piece - but would it really have been sung in a Lutheran context so long after the composer's death?

I have noticed a similarity between it and Their bodies are buried in peace from (G F) Handel's Israel in Egypt but nobody has ever confirmed that I'm not imagining it.

No one 'slipped anything in', and it wasn't extraordinary in the least. The Handl would most certainly have been sung in a Lutheran context so long after the composer's death - Google Florilegium Portense if you want more on this point. This concert was a (shortened) recreation of what we know in very considerable detail to have been the structure of the Good Friday liturgy in the Leipzig of Bach's time, and the Handl was part of it. More information in the excellent booklet to the Dunedin recording of the John Passion. I think you can safely trust John Butt to know what Bach did or didn't get up to in Leipzig - he is, after all, one of the foremost living Bach scholars, and has written a fascinating book about the Passions, which I can recommend. As for the scoring of Betrachte and Erwage - muted violins are specified as an option by JSB here in one version of the work (and he also used lute, or organ, or harpsichord in various versions of the work for the keyboard obbligato in Betrachte).

[antongould]

Enjoyed the performance on R3 - I think SMP did a good not over effusive announcing job (there are those quick to criticise when it's not good so let's be positive also!).

Scholar, gentleman .... I run out of words .... and agree .....

[jean]

No one 'slipped anything in', and it wasn't extraordinary in the least. The Handl would most certainly have been sung in a Lutheran context so long after the composer's death - Google Florilegium Portense if you want more on this point. This concert was a (shortened) recreation of what we know in very considerable detail to have been the structure of the Good Friday liturgy in the Leipzig of Bach's time, and the Handl was part of it.

What I should have said is that I found it extraordinary, because I did not know any of this, except that I had spotted the similarity to the Handel I noted above, and I'd asked everyone I could think of about it - including the learned posters on this board - and nobody had ever come up with an answer.

However, thanks to the pointers in your post, I've found what I've been looking for. I wasn't imagining it:

Douglas Cowling wrote (January 12, 2007):

Bradley Lehman wrote:
< Have you sung the GF Handel piece that sticks a handful of Gallus-Handl bars (no pun intended) into the middle of it, wholesale? It's one of the funeral anthems. Neat bit, Handel quoting Handl. The music suddenly sounds archaic and it's in older metric notation...and then it switches back just as suddenly. >

Handel quotes Handl's "Ecce quomodo" in his funeral anthem, "The Ways of Zion Do Mourn". It's a perfect example of how the Reniassance repertoire continued to be sung in the Lutheran service and influenced a composer in the 18th century even when he was writing an English anthem for the Anglican rite. Bach knew this motet very well for he always conducted it on Good Friday at a later point in the service after the singing of the Passion.

.

[Gary Freer]

34 years on ....

That was wonderful - beyond words really . What an extraordinary weekend of music starting with Friday's Mahler. Thanks to the rain today I think I caught virtually all of it - including this morning's superb organ recital.

I was very fortunate to be part of a performance of the SJP under Butty at Little St Marys in Cambridge in 1983 during the period when he was directing St Catharine's College Choir (the late Peter le Huray was supervising his postgrad research). Soloists included Chris Purves as Jesus and Simon Keenlyside - wow.

Watching the coverage brought back wonderful memories of that performance and of his rehearsals. I particularly remember the vibrant, energetic tempi and the care taken to rehearse the chorales. Yesterday bore the hallmarks of both.

The soloists were all superb.

[Hornspieler]

Some great playing and singing here, but the sound balance on television is very poor. The solo violinist might as well have no resin on her bow, while the vocal soloists are tastelessly amplified.

Agreed.

Such a pity - but the choir were very good and obviously well trained for this difficult work.

HS