ConcertPulse
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Two great Passion settings by Johann Sebastian Bach, the St. Matthew Passion and the St. John Passion, are considered to be among the cornerstones of western music. Another, following the Gospel of Mark, has remained lost to the day. How might it have sounded? Over the past decades, many experts have attempted to reconstruct the St. Mark Passion. While this initially may seem like the search for sunken Atlantis, the philosopher’s stone, or the Holy Grail, from the perspective of musical practice it is actually not so different from what Bach himself did on a regular basis: creative secondary use. Many of his chorales or arias can be spotted more than once in his catalogue of works – usually with a different text and sometimes in an entirely different context. This baroque practice is known as musical parody, and it works both ways: Ton Koopman, one of the world’s foremost Bach performers, decided to start over: In tireless research, he examined works by the great master, trying to find out whether they might serve as musical setting for the words of Mark’s Gospel. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passions lead us to the core of Christian faith, and to the bleak abysses of all earthly life: desperation, betrayal, cruelty and the fear of death. And yet, underneath everything lies an unwavering trust in God. Ton Koopman’s reconstruction of the St. Mark Passion believably retraces the sufferings of Jesus, from the opening chorus »Geh, Jesu, geh zu deiner Pein« (Go, Jesus, go to Your suffering) all the way to the final chorale in which mourning and pain seem to have been overcome. Now, sung by renowned soloists and the Amsterdam Baroque Choir, the »rebuilt« St. Mark Passion is coming to Cologne for the first time, directed by its musical rebuilder, Ton Koopman.
