Maundy Thursday in Pennsylvania

Readers of the Helen stories might remember the enormous effort that Helen and her students put into the Matthäuspassion (just before Helen runs off to audition for Goodbye Mr. Chips!, the shameless hussy).

I'm watching this very passion on YouTube just this minute, and it is a particularly nice performance.  There are many good performances on YouTube, of course, and they are all more interesting to watch, than to simply listen to the music on a CD.

There are three choruses that I always look forward to; the great opening chorus, Come ye daughters,  the great chorus that closes the first half of the passion: O Man, bewail thy grievous sin, and the closing chorus, We lay ourselves, with weeping prostrate  (the English translation doesn't quite convey the meaning of the original German, I very much suspect).  Each of these is a masterpiece in itself, including, in my opinion, the last chorus, which is generally neglected by critics.

The opening chorus sets the scene for the religious drama that is presented in the Passion: exhorting the Daughters of Zion (a symbolic group representing the audience in the manner of Greek Drama) to weep.  The piece does not further the action, but it successfully sets the foreboding mood of the drama, which relates how Jesus is captured--away from his staunch supporters--and brought before the religious authorities, and eventually tried by a sort of kangaroo court, convicted, and executed.  From the outset, it manages to create a mood of confusion and fear, proceeds to work itself up to a feeling of terror, and then stops, saying, behold a lamb; implying that it will be slaughtered.

The big chorus halfway through the passion, O Mensch, bewein dein' Sundre gross,  'O Man, repent your enormous sin,' expresses great remorse, grief, shame and mourning.  The children's choir, usually placed in the center, sings the hymn, while the two other choirs, usually placed on either side, comment on the hymn, emphasizing it and elaborating on it.  It's hard to describe; the old German tune that it is sung to is just perfect for it, as if it were an epic poem, describing the shameful death of a hero.

The final chorus is simply a farewell.  In this case, it is the sad farewell of a choir that is wiped out, emotionally, left without hope, keeping exhausted watch over the grave of Jesus.  Some of this is explicit in the words, much of it is conveyed in the homophonic wail that we hear in the music.

Kay.