MacMillan: St Luke Passion

Saturday 1 April 2017
Bristol Cathedral, Bristol

Christopher Finch - conductor
Nigel Nash - organ
Bristol Ensemble - leader Roger Huckle
A Handful of Singers
The Red Maids' School Chamber Choir

Concert Order

(Scroll down or click a composer or work to view programme notes...)

Introduction to this performance of Macmillan's St Luke Passion

James MacMillan spoke to David Allenby from Boosey & Hawkes music publishers about his St Luke Passion and how it turns the spotlight on the chorus and returns to Baroque roots.

You have been continually drawn back to the Passion narrative. Why is this?
I've always enjoyed a fruitful fascination with the Passion story, and there are deep reasons through history why artists and composers have been attracted to it, right up to our own times. The story is compelling and the images are powerful, prompting a variety of responses. Each time I return to it I try and find different perspectives. Some are purely instrumental. Others follow more familiar formats with choir, such as the Seven Last Words from the Cross or the St John Passion.

What drew you especially to St Luke's telling of the story? How does it differ from St John?
My setting of the St John Passion took a particular approach, examining the human drama, and was almost operatic in impact. So returning after a five-year interval I wanted to take an alternative direction. St John stands apart from the other three so-called Synoptic Gospel writers who share structure and common material and, of those three, St Luke has a special appeal for me. As well as relating Christ's life and teachings, Luke is concerned with the idea of the Kingdom of God which points forward to the same author's Acts of the Apostles. This started me thinking about a more spiritual, inward and pared-back approach to create a focused work about an hour long.

How did you select the texts from St Luke's Gospel?
I decided to frame the Passion narrative with a Prelude exploring the Annunciation to set the scene, and a Postlude taking us beyond the Crucifixion to the Resurrection and Ascension. These incorporate Gospel texts where Luke explains the Kingdom of God. The main body of the work sets Chapters 22 and 23 complete. The other major decision was to use English throughout. I'd been struck at performances of the St John Passion how engaged the audience was with the narrative sections in English, and several people, perhaps not church regulars, came up to tell me how the story had gripped them, as if for the first time. This was perhaps because we are so used to Latin settings, or to German when we hear the Bach Passions. So I opted for English only and decided not to include any extraneous texts beyond Luke's Gospel.

Why did you dispense with soloists and focus on the chorus as narrator?
I decided to do without the usual tenor Evangelist and bass Christ. Everything would be sung by choral forces. This posed quite a few challenges for me as a composer and for the chorus who would have to be very busy. I'd used a chamber choir narrating the story in the St John Passion, and I envisage in the St Luke Passion a flexible approach with a semi-chorus and the choir. I tried to make the choral writing as varied as possible, sometimes homophonic, sometimes with upper or lower voices, at other times just a unison line. The crowd sections move into polyphony to show the chaotic, angry or fearful world of the street.

Using the children's choir to depict Christ imparts a special quality. How did this come about?
Any Passion that casts Christ as a soloist immediately makes him take human form as an adult male, whereas I wanted to examine his otherness, sanctity and mystery. Employing a children's choir grants a measure of innocence to Christ as the sacrificial lamb, while the vocal line is either in unison or in three parts reflecting the oneness or Trinitarian implications of God.

How did you select the orchestra to balance the choral forces in this Passion?
The orchestration was dictated by my pared-back approach and practical issues for choirs that might want to hire an orchestra and can't always afford additional brass or percussion. It has taken me back to the Baroque origins of the oratorio, employing a distinctive Handelian chamber orchestra with organ and timpani. There is a single flute and clarinet, while oboes and bassoons have doublings for expressive reasons, plus two horns and trumpets. The use of organ together with cello or double bass solos gives a continuo feel, but support for the chorus is also at times provided by the string or wind choirs.

How do you view the state of new choral music today?
I'm genuinely surprised and delighted by the amount of new choral music being commissioned and performed by choirs today. I would never have believed this possible when I think of the world 30 years ago. The landscape has totally changed and I'm finding choral writing becoming much more central to myself and other composers. The thirst for new choral music from audiences is equally marked and most welcome.

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Thomas Tallis (c1505-1585) The Lamentations of Jeremiah (Parts 1 and 2)

It is not often noted that Thomas Tallis was a rather slow developer as a composer. Over the course of his long life, the music he wrote tended to get shorter, clearer, and more concise, and he gradually developed the certainty of direction and the intensity which characterise his best pieces. The process is however obscured by the differing musical demands of the English Church under the four monarchs whom he served. The Lamentations of Jeremiah is a late piece, written while Elizabeth I - the last of the four - was on the throne, and it shows all the characteristics of his late style, with clear textures and shortish sections. The Old Testament book of Lamentations was probably written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC. It is traditionally ascribed to the prophet Jeremiah, though modern scholars doubt that it was his work. It was written as a poem, and as an acrostic - the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order are used to start each line. Tallis follows the Renaissance musical tradition of setting these letters to music at the beginning of the verse they introduce - Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth and He. The section of the Lamentations set to music by Tallis was said or sung as the first and second lessons from the service of Matins on Maundy Thursday. It is most likely however that Tallis's piece was not intended for liturgical performance, but rather for private use in the homes of Catholic recusants. As often with his music, the words can be interpreted as having a symbolic meaning for Elizabethan Catholics: suggesting the oppression of priests, and asking Jerusalem (= England) to return to the Lord (= the true faith).

The choir is divided into five parts. In our performance they're Soprano, Alto 1, Alto 2, Tenor and Bass, although there is some evidence that Tallis intended it to be sung by men's voices only, at a lower pitch. There are two sections, parts 1 and 2, which are actually separate pieces usually sung consecutively.

Listen out for:

• The beginning: a feeling of penitence and desolation is created by use of the minor mode and stark rising intervals followed by gently falling scalar passages.
• False relations: ‘scrunches’ in the harmony, usually in the lead up to cadences. There are several nice ones in the first section; they seem to add to the sombre atmosphere.
• The final section of Part 1 the repeated word Jerusalem is one of Tallis's most expressive moments. The top part - Soprano - leads the other four.
N.B. Although in the Renaissance style all parts are theoretically equal, in the Lamentations the top part tends to dominate, as here. A progressive trait.
• The technique of imitation, in which the same motif is used by all the parts in succession. Used at the beginning of most of the sections. Ghimel is a good example: see if you can hear all five parts coming in in the order Alto 1 - Soprano - Tenor - Alto 2 - Bass. Tallis is careful to vary the order every time he uses this technique.

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Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Adagio for Strings

The Adagio for Strings is certainly Barber's best-known piece. The music was written in 1936 as the slow movement of his String Quartet op. 11, and arranged by him for string orchestra the same year. It is on many people's list of the most beautiful music ever written, often evoking phrases such as ‘sense of longing’ and ‘deep sadness’. It is a beautifully controlled arch form, starting with one note played on the first violins, to which is added slowly shifting harmonies; the music gradually rises to an intense climax, and then dies away via a varied reprise of the opening to a serene ending. It lasts about 8 minutes.

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James MacMillan (b1959) St Luke Passion

The Scottish composer and conductor Sir James MacMillan is one of the best-known musicians of his generation. He has written a lot of music in many different genres, including four symphonies, several operas, concertos, chamber and choral music. The St Luke Passion (2012-13) is his second, after the St John Passion (2007); he has said that he plans to write four - one setting of each of the Gospels.

Five things you need to know about the St Luke Passion

1. The piece runs continuously for about 75 minutes.
2. There are no soloists. The words of Christ are sung by a children's choir, and everything else is sung by the main choir.
3. The orchestra is quite small - eleven players plus organ and strings (but handled so expertly that it often sounds like more).
4. The words are taken from the Catholic edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. MacMillan sets all of chapters 22 and 23 of St Luke's Gospel. In addition there is a Prelude which uses words from the Annunciation, and a Postlude which refers to the Ascension. Thus the main narrative is framed by scenes from the very beginning and end of Christ's life on earth.
5. It is very difficult to perform, for both choirs and for the orchestra; but, we hope, well worth the effort involved. It's also not an easy listen; but if you follow the words and think about how the composer has interpreted their emotional meaning, the commitment and integrity of the piece should shine through.

Five wonderful things about the St Luke Passion

1. The sound-world. Despite many influences - some sections are reminiscent of Stravinsky, Britten, Tippett, Messiaen and others - MacMillan creates a style which is very much his own. In particular he uses (a) many common (major or minor) chords - but always in such a way as to avoid tonal clichés; the words of Christ are mostly set like this; (b) clusters or groups of consecutive notes - for colouristic or dramatic effect; and (c) melodic arabesques - fast-moving decorative melodies, sometimes in several parts, over slow or static harmonies.
2. Word-setting. The rhythms are never obvious, and MacMillan is a master at setting words such as And he said to them which are pure narrative, or suggest no musical shape.
3. The use of the children's choir for the words of Christ is very imaginative, and gives a purity which is the counterpart of Bach's use of accompanied recitative for Christ's words in the St Matthew Passion. MacMillan does not mean his piece to be realistic.
4. Motivic structure. The piece starts with a dramatic falling semitone figure, which reappears dramatically several times; and many of the melodies start from this interval, rising or falling. The very end of the piece can be seen as resolving the tension set up at the very beginning.
5. Most of the piece is very dramatic, with declamatory gestures from both choir and orchestra. By contrast the more lyrical and reflective sections, such as the Daughters of Jerusalem in chapter 23, are all the more poignant.

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The Bristol Ensemble

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A Handful Of Singers

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The Red Maids' School Chamber Choir
Director of Music: Stephanie Harrison

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