Christ Chapel Choir performed on Palm Sunday last week.
Courtesy | Hillsdale College Marketing
Halfway through the Passion Song concert on Palm Sunday, there was only one thought going through my head – ‘make it sound like a herd of angry chickens.’
I was singing “Weg Weg Mit Dem,” a chorale in which a crowd calls for Christ to be taken away and crucified. My choices were either to struggle with the emotional weight of my words– “crucify him”– or to distract myself by thinking of angry chickens.
Last Sunday, Christ Chapel Choir performed selections from Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St. John Passion” during a service that alternated texts from the Old Testament with the narrative of Christ’s Passion found in St. John’s Gospel.
The performance was a chance for both the musicians and the audience to enter into the long tradition of meditation on the Passion of Christ. Not only is Bach’s St. John Passion a technically challenging piece of music, but it is also an emotionally difficult piece to perform.
The idea behind the performance was to mimic the structure of Anglican Evensong. The choral and solo selections were alternated with readings from the Old Testament.
“The result was a compelling juxtaposition of prophetic texts from the Old Testament which prefigure the sufferings of the Messiah with Bach’s powerful musical setting of the Passion story,” said Timothy McDonell, director of Christ Chapel Choir, in the program notes.
While the format of Passion Song was unique, the music was performed in a way that Bach would have recognized. We had the opportunity to play with musicians specializing in Baroque music, including Fiona Hughes and Three Notch’d Road– a baroque ensemble from Virginia.
There are a number of differences between the musical instruments we are familiar with and their baroque ancestors. From strings made out of sheep guts to oddly shaped bows and wooden flutes and oboes, structural differences change the color and feel of the music– the instruments had a warmer tone than standard strings and reeds.
Bach is challenging to sing. He treats his vocalists like instruments that don’t need to breathe. The opening movement’s long passages of fast notes make you feel breathless, and if you’re doing it right, your abs hurt afterward.
The choral parts were meant to be musically intense. The choir represented the crowd of Pharisees and their supporters.
“Bach’s purpose is for the Christian faithful to see themselves in those who persecute and, ultimately, put Christ to death,” McDonnell said.
Vocal music is especially personal; the instrument you are playing is yourself. To sing anything requires that you enter into the minds of the song’s characters– you put on the music and enter the scene.
To effectively sing the words of the blood-thirsty crowd and the Pharisees, we had to put ourselves in their places. It felt wrong, even though it was only an act, because, in some ways, it was real. The Crucifixion was a product of our sins, and singing the St. John Passion makes you feel that personally.
In many ways, this performance was the perfect refocusing of my Lenten practices just before the climax of the season.
“One of the principal acts of Christian worship is remembrance,” wrote Adam Rick, Hillsdale College chaplain. “To remember is to be joined to God’s salvation in the here and now by his power operative in the act. To remember is to worship.”
