It is often said that in the drama, beauty and sorrow expressed in JS Bach’s St John Passion we glimpse something of the glory of God. Indeed Bach wrote in his personal Bible ‘Where there is devotional music, God with His grace is always present’. For me his St John Passion is the most profound, sublime and moving composition ever written. It allows us to inhabit the story of Jesus Christ’s last days and his death upon the cross in a terrible and beautiful way. It is humbling in its scale and ambition. The piece’s dramatic, immediate qualities rely on its setting and the interaction between Jesus, Pilate, St Peter, a Maid and a Servant, and the crowd - the soldiers, priests and people of Jerusalem - as they recount the events of the Passion.
In the Christian Passion story, as told in John’s Gospel, God reminds us through his son Jesus Christ that he knows and understands all that it is to be human, our joys and our suffering, our hopes and our fears, our love and our cruelty, and knowing us completely loves us completely.
John’s Gospel reports these events in a series of dramatic and heart breaking scenes: Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, St Peter’s denial of Jesus, Jesus examined, struck and bound before Annas and sent to Caiaphas, his trial before Pontius Pilate, his humiliation by Pilate’s soldiers and the Crown of Thorns, his Crucifixion, death and burial.
The St John Passion was first performed in 1724. Bach returned to its composition over the next twenty-five years. In a very human way it seems to have been in a process of perfecting. It deals with despair, betrayal, arrest, interrogation, condemnation and execution, with suffering, death and sorrow at the heart of its narrative. Despite this it gives overwhelming voice to the importance and triumph of hope, for where hope is diminished evil is emboldened. It has never been surpassed and speaks eloquently into our own times.
The Hanover Band is one of Britain’s finest period instrument orchestras and together with its Hanover Band Chorus has an enviable reputation. They will be joined by a number of leading soloists.
Whether your heart is inspired by the sacred or the secular you cannot fail to me moved and transformed by Bach’s masterpiece The St John Passion. To book your tickets visit www.ticketsource.co.uk/thehanoverbandfoundation.
Rupert Toovey is a senior director of Toovey’s, the leading fine art auction house in West Sussex, based on the A24 at Washington - www.tooveys.com - and a priest in the Church of England Diocese of Chichester.