I’m not a believer. While I can’t presume to know the truth either way, I’m more inclined to believe there is none out there. But I can’t be certain of that either. I doubt. That’s the best way to put it. But just as some events in life bring me closer to absolute denial, there are a few things that sometimes make me wonder: “what if it’s true?” Of those, probably Johann Sebastian Bach’s religious music is the more important, the one thing that always makes me doubt towards the other side, the believing side, for only an illuminated mind could write music of so high, so unreachable beauty. Bach’s devotion didn’t hinder him from expressing himself; on the contrary, it stimulated him, it helped him create works of gigantic scope and reach, music that sounds like nobody else's before or after him, sounds that transport us to places that are not of this Earth. I’m not a believer, but when I listen to some of Bach’s religious music, I believe. He makes me do so. And one of those works is this Passion.
The St. Matthew Passion has always overshadowed this other, less famous work. While parts and excerpts of the St. Matthew Passion have even been used in popular media, the St. John Passion remains largely unknown except for classical music aficionados. The magnitude of the work is a little smaller, the scale of the forces needed and the duration of the composition not as sumptuous as its big sister. But the same beatific melodies, the same consolatory passages, the same devotion is here. All it takes is a few minutes to realize we’re listening to another masterpiece in the same level as the St. Matthew Passion or Handel’s “Messiah”: the opening, quiet, continues to grow with a wave-like ostinato below the chorus that brings to mind images of thousands of souls singing for their Lord, moving and flowing like a river, like a sea before the arrival of a terrible storm. The music is beautiful yet there’s a hint of danger, of sadness, of gloom, we are let know that upcoming events will leave us like orphans. The music ascends to the heavens, yet it somehow predicts the suffering that is yet to come.
This is just the first movement. For me to describe all the recitatives and chorales and arias would be pointless (and difficult). People already familiar with the art of the composer will know the kind of music that is to be expected here. A little more intimate than the St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion is another one of those rare musical works that make me doubt my doubts. It really is divine music. Sad, nostalgic, but full of hope, as were, supposedly, the last days of the life of Jesus. At the end of the piece, after more than 130 minutes have elapsed, we leave terribly sorry for what has happened but very optimistic of the future. We leave resurrected.
A note about this recording (and the only reason I don’t give it a perfect score): while the playing, in modern instruments, is perfect and the conduction impeccable (with all the right tempos and understanding of the devotion in the music), I don’t like the fact that the vocals are sung in English, using a translation of the German original. We don’t all understand German, but that’s not necessary, that’s what the texts that come with the discs are for. Music such as this could be in any language, and we’d always understand what it means.
4.5/5
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