Passion Concert

Introduction 50 minutes before the start of the concert in the concert hall

The best way to move through the year is with accompaniment. Some people orient themselves toward the calendar or along the seasons; for others, traditional or religious celebrations or the school holidays provide structure. But even just the music of Johann Sebastian Bach would be sufficient to experience the course of the year as deeply meaningful: the Christmas Oratorio during Advent, cantatas at Easter, Pentecost and on just about all other high holy days. But what about Good Friday?

Jesus Christ’s death on the cross – a good two and a half hours of composed pain, isolation, betrayal, desperation, violence and fear transformed into sound. “Why on earth do we do this to ourselves time and again?” we might ask. Perhaps because, like no other work in the history of music, Bach’s St Matthew Passion reflects both the dark abysses and the spiritual heights of our human existence. Music that seems to artfully pace through the entire cosmos of our existence – at the same time divine and deeply terrestrial, human. And this year too we come across the heavenly first and foremost in the greatest suffering.