A Passion for Bach | Standpoint

June 2008

A modern orchestra like the Boston brings something different to these pieces, of course. Despite the virtues of all that has been discovered and revived by the period-practice specialists, it would be a perverse, self-denying ordinance that banned modern orchestras from playing this music. These are wonderful musicians whose musicality has been formed in the shadow of Bach. He is a deep composer, literally — one whose works function on many different levels; there are aspects of the music which only modern instruments can illuminate. There is no right and wrong. And in this case we were under the benign supervision of a great conductor, one who knows when to intervene and when to stand back and let it happen. It was a great way to come back to the Matthew.

But if I ask myself why I have missed these pieces so much, why they were for 10 years such an important part of my singing year, I have to say that, typical Anglican agnostic that I am, they satisfied my religious instincts. I don’t think that’s just woolliness on my part. Bach’s music represents something very special: an end and a beginning. He is a late exemplar of the Renaissance sensibility which saw music as an embodiment and expression of the Divine order; composers who wrote after him, even composers who were truly religious or who were profoundly influenced by him, wrote music which lacked the confident expressivity of that metaphysical-cum-religious framework.

Immersing ourselves in his music, which harnessed supreme tehnical skill to a coherent vision of a God-infused world, allows us an inner vision (an aural one) of that long-lost sense of order and belonging.

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Janet Kenny

May 31st, 2008
3:05 AM

I am surprised, and yet perhaps not surprised, to read such a misunderstanding of Handel and of Italian music, from Ian Bostridge, a great interpreter and singer. We all have our blind spots. Ian Bostridge has a genius for finding the human longing in the music of the great northern European composers, from Bach to Britten. I was once a professional singer and performed the alto solo part in Bach's Passion according to St. Matthew in Crawley, England. Another great "Ian" (Partridge) was the sublime Evangelist on that occasion. It was during that performance that I realised that the seeds of the tragedy of the 20th century were germinating in that work. To claim a greater purity for Bach over the sunny innocence of Handel shows,in my experience, a conditioned response that does not reflect reality. I must revere Bach but I also revere Handel. As for plagiarism in the music of Handel, Bach was not shy about appropriating the music of Vivaldi. It was a common practice and part of the musical conversation. Janet Kenny Janet Kenny

Savta Dotty

May 30th, 2008
9:05 AM

Having just listened to "Erbarme Dich" on my iPod while riding the bus, I can only applaud your return to my favorite work of music of all time, "The Saint Matthew Passion." As a secular Jew, I have always felt that Bach's music, like no one else's, transcends man-made religious categories and offers us Religion with a capital "R."

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