In church music, Passion is a term for sung musical settings, normally at least partly choral, of the Gospel texts covering the Passion of Jesus, the events leading up to the Crucifixion of Jesus, and emphasising his suffering. The special Catholic services on the last three days of Holy Week are known as Tenebrae, and there have been many famous musical settings of the readings from these services, especially those from the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet.
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The reading of the Passion from one of the Gospels during Holy Week dates back at least to the 4th century[1] and is described by Egeria. In the 5th century Pope Leo the Great specified that the gospel of Matthew be used on Palm Sunday and the following Wednesday and that of John on Good Friday; by the 10th century Luke replaced Matthew on Wednesday and Mark was added on Tuesday.
The passion began to be intoned (rather than just spoken) in the Middle Ages, at least as early at the 8th century. 9th-century manuscripts have "litterae significativae" indicating interpretive chant, and later manuscript begin to specify exact notes to be sung. By the 13th century different singers were used for different characters in the narrative, a practice which became fairly universal by the 15th century, when polyphonic settings of the turba passages began to appear also (Turba, while literally meaning "crowd," is used in this case to mean any passage in which more than one speaker speaks simultaneously). The formula of the present Graduale Romanum was the most widespread, with Christ singing in the lowest register and Synagogus (denoting not only the high priest but all characters besides Christ) singing higher than the evangelist/narrator. In Spain a Toledan tone with the evangelist's part recto tono (on a monotone) was used in Castile and a Saragossan tone with a bass evangelist and a florid tenor Christus was used in much of Aragon, where the Roman tone also had a foothold in Valencia.
In the later 15th century a number of new styles began to emerge:
In the 16th century many settings, chiefly of the responsorial type, were written by William Byrd (St. John, 3vv), Jacobus Gallus, Francisco Guerrero (five including second St. John, mostly 5vv), Orlando di Lasso (all four, 4vv), Cypriano de Rore (St John) and Victoria.
A later development of the Catholic passion was the reflective passion-oratorio such as Metastasio's Italian libretto La passione di Gesù Cristo set by Caldara, Salieri and many other composers between 1730 and 1812.
Latin passions continued in parallel with the style of Metastasio, often set by minor composers such as the unknown Carlo Sturla, music master at the Convent of Santa Brigida, who set a Latin passion in 18th Century operatic style, Passio di Venerdì Santo, for the Oratorio di San Filippo Neri, Via Lomellini, Genoa in 1736.
Martin Luther wrote, "The Passion of Christ should not be acted out in words and pretense, but in real life." Despite this, sung Passion performances were common in Lutheran churches right from the start, in both Latin and German, beginning as early as Laetare Sunday (three weeks before Easter) and continuing through Holy Week. Luther’s friend and collaborator Johann Walther wrote responsorial Passions which were used as models by Lutheran composers for centuries, and “summa Passionis” versions continued to circulate, despite Luther’s express disapproval. Later sixteenth-century passions included choral “exordium” (introduction) and “conclusio” sections with additional texts. In the 17th century came the development of “oratorio” passions which led to J.S. Bach’s passions, accompanied by instruments, with interpolated texts (then called “madrigal” movements) such as sinfonias, other Scripture passages, Latin motets, chorale arias, and more. Such settings were created by Bartholomeus Gesius and Heinrich Schütz. Thomas Strutz wrote a passion (1664) with arias for Jesus himself, pointing to the standard oratorio tradition of Schütz, Carissimi, and (later) Handel, although these composers seem to have thought that putting words in Jesus’ mouth was beyond the pale. The practice of using recitative for the Evangelist (rather than plainsong) was a development of court composers in northern Germany and only crept into church compositions at the end of the 17th century.
The best known Protestant musical settings of the Passion are by Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote two Passions which have survived intact to the present day, one based on the Gospel of John (the St John Passion), the other on the Gospel of Matthew (the St Matthew Passion). The Passion continued to be very popular in Protestant Germany in the 18th century, with Bach's second son Carl Philipp Emanuel composing over twenty settings. Major composers of passions included Graun, Telemann, Reinhard Keiser, Stölzel, Mattheson and Handel - these last five also composing Brockes-Passions after the text of Barthold Heinrich Brockes.
In the 19th century, with the exception of John Stainer's" The Crucifixion" (1887), Passion settings were less popular, but in the 20th century, they have again come into fashion. Two notable settings are the St. Luke Passion (1965) by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki and the St. John Passion (1982) by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.
In 2000 Helmuth Rilling and the Internationale Bachakademie commissioned four modern composers to compose passions on the four Gospels; Matthew was allocated to Tan Dun - Water Passion After St Matthew, Mark to Osvaldo Golijov - La Pasión Según San Marcos, Luke to Wolfgang Rihm - Deus Passus, and John to Sofia Gubaidulina - St John Passion (Страсти по Иоанну).
More recent examples include the Passion According to St. Matthew (1997), by Mark Alburger, and The Passion According to the Four Evangelists by Scott King. Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar (book and lyrics by Tim Rice), and Stephen Schwartz's Godspell both contain elements of the traditional passion accounts. Peter Gabriel's score to Martin Scorsese's 1988 film the Last Temptation of Christ was released as an album under the title Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ.
A relative of the musical Passion is the custom of setting the text of Stabat Mater to music.