1 gen 1727 anni - St. Matthew Passion

Descrizione:

Conceived on an enormous scale in duration and performing forces, featuring two antiphonal choirs, each with its own supporeting orchestra. Bach composed it in relative tranquility after his prodigious cantata production had subsided. Following the conventions established by Neumeister, in both Passions the text operates on three levels which interact to produce a sort of biblical opera-with-commentary. The original Gospel text is set as semidramatic recitative. There is a narrator, called the Evangelist, but all direct discourse, the lines spoken directly by the actors in the story, is assigned to other solo voices. Lines spoken collectively by the "people," following the turba (crowd) convention that goes back to the sixteenth century, were sung by the chorus.

The recitative-like narration is interrupted at strategic moments, just as they are in opera, by the second textual level: reflective arias. The arias, usually in da capo form, are not sung by characters but by "voice personas" who represent and give utterance to the poet's own meditations on the events and instruct the congregation on their Christian significance. In the Matthew passion, some of the arias, as well as teh reflective choruses that open and close each part, are adapted from a single long Passion poem.

Bach was well aware of the special place the St. Matthew Passion occupied within his vast output, and he therefore prepared a lavish calligraphic score, resplendent with inks of different colors, to preserve it at a time when most music, including his, was composed for specific occasions, to be used and thereafter discarded.

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