Sunday 17th March 2024 from 6.30pm in St. Andrew’s Church, Colyton EX24 6LX.
SWOS was delighted to present the 1788 Passion According to St. John, almost certainly for the first time since that date. The performance, at St Andrew’s Church in Colyton on 17 March, featured a choir of invited singers and a professional orchestra, under the direction of Peter Lea-Cox and Peter Parshall. We were joined by soloists Robert Folkes (Evangelist), Julian Rippon (Christus), Josie Walledge (Soprano) and Charlotte Badham (Alto).
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788), the second son of J. Sebastian Bach, was one of the most influential and prolific composers of the eighteenth century. New performing editions from the Packard Humanities Institute have brought to light a number of Bach’s passions which were thought to have been lost during the second world war.
CPE Bach’s settings of the Passions are modelled in scoring, scope, and musical demands on Telemann’s works from his last decade. They tell the story of Jesus’ suffering and death through one of the gospel texts, with roles allocated to specific singers. Larger groups of people (the disciples, high priests, or the crowd) are represented by the chorus. Traditionally the biblical narrative was framed by choruses or simple chorales. At high points in the story, arias and choruses interrupt the narration, commenting on and interpreting those passages in order to move the listener to devotion and penitence.
The event on began with a talk about the music by Paul Corneilson, the managing editor of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: the complete works at the Packard Humanities Institute in the USA.