Music

JS BACH St John Passion

Guest Artists

Hilary Cronin soprano
Helen Charlston mezzo-soprano
Jonathan Hanley tenor
James Way Evangelist (tenor)
Peter Edge Christus (baritone)
Choir of the Age of Enlightenment
Johanna Soller conductor

Price

£17 – £64 (Premium £82)*

The St John Passion is the earlier of Bach’s two surviving settings – although not necessarily his first work in the genre. A more intimate work than the St Matthew Passion, it distils Jesus suffering and sacrifice into a more direct narrative. In part this comes from the distinctive nature of the Gospel of John, with its deep-seated spiritual purity. The church authorities in Leipzig insisted that the Passion story and Jesus’ words could only be told according to the biblical text, but Bach pulls off a clever gambit by interpolating the gospel into a compilation of popular contemporary librettos, such as that by Barthold Heinrich Brockes that Handel and Telemann had set in the previous decade.